I've been reading several different parenting books lately, which seems to be a bad idea because for one; they all make their method sound so simple and two; they all contradict each other. Some of these I read just out of curiosity and entertainment, others I actually hoped to learn something. So here's my take on what I've read.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
This book is HILARIOUS, I don't think it's meant to be, but the woman is so...well, Nazi, that you can't help but laugh. This is one of my favorite lines, "I wanted (my daughter) to be well rounded and to have hobbies and activities. Not just any activity, like "crafts", which can lead nowhere --- or even worse, playing the drums, which leads to drugs." Basically, she is raising her girls the Chinese way and she wants them to grow up to be successful; lawyers or doctors. She believes the way to do this is by teaching them discipline and hard work by three hour music rehearsals every day, six hours on weekends and two hour drives to the best music teacher available. I find it ironic that she didn't grow up taking music lessons (her parents couldn't afford it), yet she became a lawyer...and ended up hating practicing law.
It was an eyeopening read, and I'd like my kids to be successful too, but mostly I'd like them to be good, kind people.
Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood
This book tells you how to discipline your kids from the time they are toddler/preschooler age. It says that if you try to change them once they're teenagers, it's a lot harder and sometimes too late. A lot of things in it I thought were very helpful, though, I have to admit that now I look at rude, obnoxious people and instead of thinking, "what's wrong you and why do you think that behavior is ok?" I think, "your parents must not have raised you right." I feel a little bad blaming the parents, but I'm sure I'll get over it soon enough:)
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids
This one seems to contradict Love and Logic, his theory is that we would enjoy our kids more and have more if we spent less fuss and worry over how we parent them. How our kids end up is mostly based on genetics, or nature more than nurture. So I guess a rude, obnoxious kid will always be rude no matter how they were raised? I think this book is meant to be positive, but I didn't finish it and found it rather depressing. Maybe I'm being too harsh, his point is that your kids will probably end up like you..I guess that could be good or bad.
Diaper Free Baby
This is an interesting concept that my friend Katie introduced to me. The idea is that all babies are born with the ability to control their bladders and make signals when they need to go. After being put in a diaper for two years or more, they lose this ability and have to be retrained. This book teaches you how you and your baby can communicate with each other and the baby can go to bathroom with a little help from you. I love that you have options, you can go hard core from the day they're born and never use diapers, or you can start 12-18 months old and practice once a day. I'm going to give it a try somewhere in the middle ground. The things that draw me to it the most are the fact that I'll be using less diapers overall and toilet training is usually accomplished much sooner and easier. I admit that I'm not in it to save the environment, I changed many cloth diapers on my brothers growing up and figure that I've done my duty as far as cloth diapers go. I have no regret filling a landfill with disposable diapers, but if I can save a buck by not changing over to cloth diapers, than hey, why not?
I better stop now, don't want to sound to dry here. But the final thing about parenting books is they all seem to be controversial. So maybe you guys won't agree with me or you might think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. After all, I'm the one that lost custody of my child for a week!
7 years ago
5 comments:
Love the book reviews! I've been wanting to read the TIger Mother book. And yay for Sammy and you finally getting his cast off!
Wow, you have been doing a lot of parenting reading! I have really liked "The Five Love Languages of Children" and "Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child". But my favorite thing ever is a seminar done by James Jones called "Fix the Kids". It costs WAY too much, but I was lucky enough to borrow it. Yes, we'll call it borrow :)
The books seem to be pretty much the same as when we were raising children. I remember reading a similar thing about the diaper business. My take on it was that the child wasn't really trained or in control they just had the parent trained.
Kind of like training your dog to let you know to take it outside. You still have to carry a bag and pick up dog shit. If the dog is trained it would go use the toilet and flush it down without me doing anything. :)
Thanks Dad, I know I can always count on you for a cynical comment. You might like the Selfish Reasons book, it's written by an economist.
I just finished Tiger Mother. And I have to admit, I laughed through the first part until I realized she was serious. Then I spent the rest of it going, "You've got to be kidding me." My thoughts are that she taught her children discipline, but in the end, it was WAY more about her than it was about them. I mean, their bat mitzvahs were afterthoughts compared to the parties she threw after her children performed. I think kids need to be pushed to do difficult things because how else are they going to learn the joys of overcoming obstacles? But honestly, I'd rather spend my "free time" elsewhere than playing piano/violin nazi.
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