Kate Zambreno’s work blends memoir, art criticism and literary history/gossip to brilliant effect, and in recent years, her books have become even deeper and richer as they have been suffused with the experience of early motherhood. The Light Room, like her 2021 book of literary criticism, To Write as if Already Dead, records the impossibility of finding time and space to write as a new mother. But instead of suffering from these restrictions, the book blossoms because of them, written in furious spurts that both describe and embody the stolen moments between feeding, waking and sleeping.
The Light Room offers readers who are new to Zambreno a perfect entry point into the patterns of thinking and writing that her work is known for. As it follows a daily record of Zambreno’s life with small children during the COVID-19 lockdown—the groceries, the laundry, the mess, the exhaustion and the outings to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York—the book also considers the developmental experience of pandemic babies who see unmasked faces only at home and who haven’t yet met their extended families. Zambreno tracks experiments in early education during a pandemic as well, from an outdoor “forest school” to using Montessori methods at home.
The unending domestic care work, however, is balanced by Zambreno’s reading, writing and thinking. Nursing at 4 a.m. while reading Yuko Tsushima’s novel Territory of Light about single motherhood in 1970s Japan conjures a sense of “cozy dread.” A child’s collection of found objects evokes visual artist Joseph Cornell’s box art. Translucent building blocks suggest a literary form for the book itself: a mother writing in tiny increments, stealing bits of time to build, entry by entry, a chronicle of “seasons and exhaustions.”
The restrictions, fear and grief of parenting during a pandemic are ultimately measured against moments of joy and glimmers of beauty, what Zambreno calls “translucencies.” Thinking through Natalia Ginzburg’s 1944 essay “Winter in the Abruzzi,” Zambreno approaches a vital truth that lies at the heart of this memoir: What if these days of domestic constraint turn out, in the long run, to be the happiest time in a family’s life together?
Kate Zambreno’s memoir The Light Room measures the fear and grief of parenting during a pandemic against moments of joy and glimmers of beauty.
With the rise of the body positivity movement, many parents have asked, “How do I raise my child to love their body, eat healthy foods without demonizing sweets and navigate all of the negative talk about the sizes of bodies?” Most parents don’t know, because they’ve also grown up in a fatphobic society swarming with confusing advice and thin privilege. That’s where journalist Virginia Sole-Smith’s new book, Fat Talk comes in.
‘Fat Talk’ gives tons of helpful advice for navigating food and provides conversation starters to help unpack fatphobia with your child, no matter their size.
Sole-Smith presents research about how diet culture is promoted by Instagram influencers, doctors and pharmaceutical companies, all seeking to make a dollar. She also uncovers ample evidence that proves dieting doesn’t work, except as a strategy to blame the individual instead of society’s marginalization of larger, fat bodies. Rebalancing the narrative, she argues, will target the real problems, instead of shaming and harming children. It even helps the parent resolve complications they have with their own bodies.
In addition to its science-based debunking of diet culture, Fat Talk gives tons of helpful advice for navigating food and provides conversation starters to help unpack fatphobia with your child, no matter their size. It also includes a list of resources for parents including picture and middle-grade books, memoirs, podcasts, newsletters, movies and television shows and other resources.
Calm the Chaos
Pulling from her own experiences as both a mother of a child who doesn’t quite fit the mold and a teacher, Dayna Abraham’s book, Calm the Chaos is about empowering parents of children who need extra emotional, physical and developmental support. Abraham presents a five-stage framework that helps parents navigate and quell the storm. Each stage has been broken down into manageable chunks, often with illustrations; Abraham knows the parents who need her help do not have a lot of free time.
In a conversational and relatable way, Abraham helps families create safety through love for their high-needs child so each member can move from surviving to thriving. Every chapter includes lists of questions that help assess your current needs, actionable steps to put into practice based on where you are with your child and notes that relieve any shame that may come up as you assess your family’s needs.
Abraham knows the parents who need her help do not have a lot of free time.
Abraham provides real stories about real children who have benefited from her approach, giving the reader examples to draw from as they begin implementing the strategies in the book. Calm the Chaos will be a fabulous tool for anyone seeking to give their child the power to be who they were born to be.
Erasing the Finish Line
Most parents have worried about how to prepare their children for leaving the nest and finding a successful life of their own. In Erasing the Finish Line by early career development expert Ana Homayoun, parents are encouraged to let go of the made-up finish line at high school graduation and college admissions. As an academic advisor, Homayoun has helped countless young people figure out a new blueprint for success by building core competencies that will benefit them throughout their lives. Though they may lead to academic success, these core competencies aren’t structured around test scores and GPAs. Instead, Homayoun’s method crafts a blueprint based on the individual child’s goals. She encourages parents to instead teach their children how to organize, plan, prioritize, adapt, start and complete tasks. These skills will get older children through young adulthood and are important for long term success in any job or role.
Young people in their teens and early twenties are experiencing anxiety, depression and adjustment disorders at alarming rates, a fact that Homayoun says is contributed to by the intense focus on admissions to the “right” school. Erasing the Finish Line is a delightful read that functions as a handbook for loving and accepting your child just as they are. Only when our children feel an unconditional sense of acceptance can they find real success.
Growing Up in Public
Many parents struggle to have healthy boundaries around technology, let alone help their children navigate the complex landscape of social media, texting and access to potentially harmful content. Growing Up in Public by Devorah Heitner, Ph.D. offers a wealth of relatable information, and will steer parents away from simply monitoring the ways children use technology, arguing instead for a mentorship approach that will guide children through the many landmines it can create for us.
Readers will walk away with a wealth of proactive strategies to prevent potential harm for their children who are engaging in the digital world.
From strategies rooted in trust versus surveillance, character building versus shaming and consent versus boundary crossing, Growing Up in Public gives parents a gentle guide on how to keep lines of communication open between them and their child.
Heitner’s gentleness shines in her writing. Her style puts the reader at ease, while also giving them permission to support tweens and teens through compassionate care. Readers will walk away with a wealth of proactive strategies to prevent potential harm for their children who are engaging in the digital world, as well as gentle guidance on what to do when the worst happens. This is an important guidebook for all parents as they seek to give their children the skills they need to navigate our brave new world.
Four parenting books on body positivity, neurodivergence and responsible social media use will ensure this remains the case.
You want to be a great mother. But how do you care for yourself without neglecting your kids needs, feeling overwhelmed by guilt, or succumbing under the pressure to be perfect?
Dr. Morgan—a psychotherapist and relationship expert—has helped over 100,000 moms regain their sanity and prevent burnout through her popular courses, coaching, and social media wisdom. In her debut book, Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself, she offers a proven step-by-step plan that any mom can follow. In this powerful book, she reveals how to rid yourself of mom-guilt for good, identify your needs and express them with confidence, create a self-care plan that goes beyond pedicures and bubble baths, and thrive as a woman after being on the back burner for too long.
Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself is a must-read book for modern moms. You don’t have to choose between self-abandonment or child-abandonment. You can love yourself and love your kids. Discover how to flourish as a mother, know exactly how to care for yourself in ways that actually make a difference, and finally feel joy in motherhood.
Loving your kids isn’t supposed to mean you completely disappear or get swallowed up by the demands of motherhood.
In her debut essay collection, comedian and actor Natasha Leggero muses, often hilariously, about what it’s like to have a baby at 42 and find your way as a mom. “It’s hard raising a child with a man,” she writes in the opening essay of The World Deserves My Children. “One day I asked my husband to give the baby a bath. I came into the kitchen to find my daughter sitting in a sink full of dishes while my husband scrubbed her and a plate at the same time. Don’t use Dawn on her! She’s a baby not a duck after an oil spill. I would have to be very drunk to do any of that.” Leggero’s style is breezy, sometimes over-the-top, with punchline quips punctuating her anecdotes. She’s like the funny friend who’ll say anything after a cocktail or two.
Leggero details her grueling path to pregnancy and her first few years as a parent with humor and insight. She contrasts her own scrappy childhood in Rockford, Illinois, parented by a single mom who struggled to make ends meet, with the minute concerns of the uber-privileged Los Angeles parents she encounters as an adult. As in a stand-up routine, the essays digress, often charmingly, to memories of things like her dad’s family’s Italian Christmases. While some subjects will be familiar to parents—the difficulties of breastfeeding, the search for a preschool—the collection really hits its stride in the essays on discipline and fear. Leggero writes that, as a child, she was “pretty obnoxious and tended to say whatever popped into my head—sort of like a male comedian.” Unlike a male comedian, however, Leggero had to write “I will not disrespect my mother” a thousand times as punishment for “telling it like it is.” Noting the variety of permissive parenting styles she encounters in LA, Leggero says she strives for an approach to discipline that’s somewhere in the middle.
Near the collection’s end, Leggero includes a Q&A with her husband, Moshe Kasher, also a comedian. She asks him how they differ as parents and what he thinks of her as a mother, and his answers are funny and touching. The World Deserves My Children is a book with a lot of heart and even some wisdom, perfect for fans of Jessi Klein’s I’ll Show Myself Out.
In her debut essay collection, comedian and actor Natasha Leggero muses, often hilariously, about what it’s like to have a baby at 42.
Whether you’re a brand-new parent to an infant or a grizzled veteran trying to get your teens to actually talk to you, some days you can’t help but wonder if you’re doing it all wrong. These parenting books are here to help.
Good Inside
Becky Kennedy’s Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be is the book I wish I’d had when my kids were little. Kennedy, a psychologist, argues for finding the good inside your child when they throw a tantrum or say they hate you. To start, we need a change in perspective, seeing our kids’ behavior as clues to what they need rather than who they are. Using anecdotes from clients and her own family, Kennedy decodes behaviors (lying, squabbling, perfectionism) and offers connection strategies for each. When a parent strengthens their relationship with their child, she writes, they’ll see improved behavior and cooperation. Kennedy also shows how parents can help kids name their emotions. “The wider the range of feelings we can regulate—if we can manage the frustration, disappointment, envy, and sadness—the more space we have to cultivate happiness,” she writes. It’s a warm, good-humored book.
How to Raise an Intuitive Eater
Food is a common battleground for parents and kids at all stages. Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson’s How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation With Food and Body Confidence link those family battles to diet culture, the messages about weight and appearance that we’re all bombarded with. They connect diet culture, including medical messaging, to shame, mental illness and negativity about food and the body. Eating disorders, the authors note, are among the mental illnesses that are hardest to treat. The good news is that kids are born intuitive eaters, their brains and bodies wired to know when and how much to eat. To build an intuitive eating family framework, the authors offer strategies such as their “add-in, pressure-off” approach: Instead of limiting foods, or labeling some foods bad and others good, focus on adding more variety. And instead of rules and commentary (“You must eat two bites!” “I can’t believe you’re not eating that!”), focus on providing the meal and letting the child decide how much to eat. Though sometimes dense, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater is a thoughtful and comprehensive resource.
The Teen Interpreter
In The Teen Interpreter: A Guide to the Challenges and Joys of Raising Adolescents, England-based psychologist and researcher Terri Apter aims to help parents engage with their teens’ struggles. “Try to see what your teen is seeing; try to understand what your teen is feeling,” Apter writes. Drawing on 35 years of studying teens and families, Apter describes some of the biggest challenges for teens and parents through the lens of teen brain development. As the teen brain remodels itself, changing dramatically, so do teens’ relationships, behavior, sense of identity and emotional responses (outbursts, rudeness, grumpy silences). Sometimes it can be tough to decipher what’s normal teen behavior and what might be mental illness, Apter notes. Throughout, The Teen Interpreter threads together research and teens’ stories, along with exercises for parents to communicate better and build stronger relationships with their teens, which in turn can help teens build resiliency through the challenging teen years and into young adulthood. It’s a clear and reassuring guide.
The Sleep-Deprived Teen
In The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers Are So Tired, and How Parents and Schools Can Help Them Thrive, journalist Lisa L. Lewis lays out why sleep matters to teens’ well-being: A lack of sleep affects their mental health, their ability to learn and play sports, and their behavior. But paradoxically, it’s tough for teens to get a good night’s sleep (8 to 10 hours) because their body clocks have shifted; they’re biologically primed to wake later in the morning and fall asleep later at night. The Sleep-Deprived Teen opens with the story of the first teen sleep studies at Stanford University, emphasizing how little experts knew about sleep and the teen brain until recently. As the parent of a teen, Lewis helped get the first law in the country passed requiring later school start times. Since then, studies have found that teens who start school later are more likely to show up at school and do better on standardized tests, and less likely to get into car crashes or trouble after school. The last chapters of Lewis’ book even offer a map for parents aiming to change school start times in their own districts.
Raising Antiracist Children
Antiracist and anti-bias educator Britt Hawthorne is also a home-schooling mom of multiracial children, and she draws on research, teaching and her own family’s experiences in Raising Antiracist Children: A Practical Parenting Guide. “Instead of viewing antiracism as a destination,” Hawthorne writes, “see it as a consistent, active practice: a lifestyle.” Part primer, part workbook with activities for different age groups, Raising Antiracist Children breaks down concepts like bias and white immunity to help parents initiate, rather than avoid, conversations on race. If you’re the parent of a child of color, the book can help you encourage their self-confidence. If you’re a white parent, the book can help you see aspects of racism you might not have seen before (for instance, the way our culture assumes white skin is the default). The book’s principles reflect a broader parenting philosophy that includes setting healthy boundaries, building community and following your child’s desire to learn. “Embracing your children’s curiosity will support them in becoming open-minded, science-driven, and empathetic,” Hawthorne writes. “Differences do not divide us, it’s our fear and unfair treatment of differences that do.”
Reading for Our Lives
The introduction to Maya Payne Smart’s Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan From Birth to Six makes note of a quiet crisis: American basic literacy rates are weak compared to those in other industrialized nations. Parents want to raise readers, but they may not know what to do beyond reading aloud to their children before bed. Reading for Our Lives aims to change that. The book first maps out the milestones and skills—oral language, sound and print awareness, letter knowledge, phonics and spelling—that lead to reading. Smart then offers a range of strategies, games and play suggestions that help parents build those skills organically. For instance, with babies, parents can converse in a number of ways: talk, then pause to listen to their coos; ask them questions; label everyday objects for them. With older kids, parents can play “I spy” with sounds, not just colors. (“I spy something that rhymes with tike.”) Smart’s book is an empowering manual for readers and their kids.
Staying connected with your child makes a difference at every stage. These empowering guides show you how.
In this often hilarious and consistently stirring performance, comedian, actor and all-around celebrity Jamie Foxx dishes on his toughest role: being a father. Throughout Act Like You Got Some Sense: And Other Things My Daughters Taught Me (6 hours), Foxx brings honesty and heart to touching stories about his childhood—growing up with an absent mother and being raised by a loving and unyielding grandmother—and shows how these experiences guided him when he became a parent. Foxx’s impersonations of family members are dynamic and animated, as are his exasperated (and sometimes expletive-filled) responses to the trials and tribulations of parenthood.
In an equally candid and heartwarming foreword, Foxx’s eldest daughter, Corinne, affirms that, despite some unconventional parenting, her father always showed up for her and her sister, and always conveyed his love for his family. Throughout his rise to fame, Foxx’s continual efforts to stay grounded and live by the values instilled in him by his grandmother shine through in the raising of his daughters.
This inspiring, raucous and entertaining listening experience brims with attitude and positivity about embracing parenthood and the ups and downs of life.
In this often hilarious and consistently stirring performance, comedian, actor and all-around celebrity Jamie Foxx dishes on his toughest role: being a father.
e’ve come a long way, baby Women’s History Month is a good time to reflect on the journey, on the many and varied trips some wilder than others that women have taken to get us where we are today. Who were the female characters to pave the way? And what are the issues still before us? While there are as many journeys as there are individuals, there are roles that we share, roles that (like it or not) define us and connect us through history.
A month is hardly enough time to tell our tales, but at the very least, Women’s History Month gives us reason to explore a few new and interesting books.
One of the most complicated roles women play is that of wife. Marilyn Yalom examines the Judeo-Christian tradition of marriage in A History of the Wife. To answer the question “what does it mean to be married at the turn of the century?” Yalom focuses on major changes in the marital status quo over time, ending with an intriguing analysis of a role that is still evolving. This book is made much more interesting by its focus on the wife, rather than the couple. What’s more, it’s an engaging, good read. Though clearly well researched, it is not filled with numbing statistics. The author spends ample time on that more contemporary aspect of marriage which can’t be quantified: love. Love, after all, “has become synonymous with marriage in the Western World.” But before we see too rosy a picture, Yalom reminds the reader that less palatable aspects of the married state still exist, even in our own society. Throughout, Yalom’s savvy and lively narration keeps the reader entertained.
The author is a distinguished cultural historian who is, by the way, married. Valuing motherhood It is said that mothers do this planet’s most critical work. If raising a child is America’s most important job, how can it simultaneously be the most undervalued? Ann Crittenden tackles this complicated issue in The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued. In the introduction, Crittenden explains why she had to write this book. She describes a personal moment of truth that came a few years after she resigned from The New York Times and a few months after the birth of her child, when someone asked her, “Didn’t you used to be Ann Crittenden?” Her description of suddenly “vanishing” upon becoming a mother probably hits home for many women, but there are many more reasons why we should all read The Price of Motherhood. I found myself alternately impassioned and discouraged by what I learned from Crittenden. She describes with passion and clarity how our society pays tribute to Mom in words while in reality systematically disadvantaging her (indeed, putting her at risk). Working women may have been liberated, she argues, but mothers were not. Perhaps most importantly, Crittenden challenges the argument that women’s liberation is responsible for devaluing motherhood. And finally, she includes as her closing chapter important and reasonable means to bring about the change mothers deserve. Crittenden aims her recommendations specifically at employers, government and husbands, but this is truly recommended reading for us all.
Crittenden is an award-winning journalist and author (including a Pulitzer Prize nomination) but in my mind what really qualifies her for the accomplishment of this book is what compelled her to write it in the first place. Writing from her own experience as professional woman and mother, Crittenden’s words are accurate, heartfelt and imminently readable.
Setting sail Many women will be wives and mothers. Far fewer will adventure in a pirate ship on the high seas, in solo flights across the Atlantic or on horseback in the Arabian desert. Author David Cordingly gives us a lesser known piece of women’s history in Women Sailors ∧ Sailors’ Women. Cordingly writes of women and the high seas in the 18th and 19th centuries, a subject about which there’s a surprising amount to tell. It is generally acknowledged that when men went to sea in the Great Age of Sail, women were left behind. In reality, however, a fair number of the fairer sex were aboard. Some openly so: wives of navy officers who mothered warship crews or wives of merchant captains who sometimes took command. The presence of others was kept secret: women disguised as men to serve their ship or country.
Even women left ashore had prominent parts to play in our seafaring history lighthouse keepers, for example, and the wives and prostitutes whose real lives in the ports-of-call are surprising in their own right. Cordingly also examines the place of women in legends and lore of the seas (figureheads, sirens, mermaids). But I found the most fascinating tales to be those of the ruthless female pirates like Hannah Snell and Mary Anne Talbot. Cordingly is also the author of an acclaimed history of piracy and for 12 years was on staff at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. He clearly knows something of the lives of sailors; his knowledge, interest and good research are evident. He includes first person accounts from ship records and journals which makes the stories of Women Sailors ∧ Sailors’ Women vivid and fun.
Unconventional women Women’s History Month wouldn’t be complete without paying a visit to some of history’s most memorable female characters. That’s exactly what Barbara Holland does in They Went Whistling: Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways, and Renegades. In this celebration of unconventional and adventurous women, Holland tells the stories of rebels such as Joan of Arc, George Sand, Mata Hari, Queen Jinga and my personal favorite, Amelia Earhart. Though most of these women are familiar, Holland’s portraits of them are carefully researched and categorized in interesting fashion. Chances are you’ll discover something new about these outlaws, grandstanders, seekers and radicals. Holland doesn’t hold out much hope that such figures will reappear anytime soon; she suggests that the 1960s saw the last of them, that “careers . . . keep women in line more effectively than policemen or repressive husbands.” But as hard as it is to imagine a modern-day Belle Starr our obstacles and environment may not be as dramatic this doesn’t have to make the Marion Joneses, the Madeleine Albrights and even the Madonnas any less inspiring. I’m willing to wager that in Women’s History Months to come, the 21st century will have contributed tales of our own female pioneers. The adventures continue.
Danica M. Jefferson is a new mom living in Baltimore.
e’ve come a long way, baby Women’s History Month is a good time to reflect on the journey, on the many and varied trips some wilder than others that women have taken to get us where we are today. Who were the female characters to pave the way? And what are the issues still before […]
The anticipation and excitement surrounding the arrival of a baby can be felt to some degree by all ages. However, younger children’s expectations may quickly turn to disappointment when the newborn infant does not walk, talk, or play games. Expectant parents find it challenging, trying to educate and prepare themselves; how can children be taught to appreciate, at some level, the accomplishments of a baby? Penny Gentieu’s latest book, Grow! Babies! encourages younger readers to appreciate and understand babies by photographing and chronicling 19 different babies’ benchmarks of growth during their first year of life. The concise, informative sentences can hold even the shortest attention spans. The varied use of color and size in the adorable photographs, as well as the printed text, appeals to the curiosity in readers of all ages. The babies photographed in the book represent a cultural cross section of our society.
Since babies are a source of fascination for both younger and older readers, Grow! Babies! is truly an ageless book that can be shared and enjoyed by the entire family. It is easy to imagine a child picking out one of the babies and flipping through the pages, paying attention to that particular baby’s growth and changes. The expressions on each of the babies’ faces are priceless. It is impossible to look through this book without smiling, or oohing and ahhing. Grow! Babies! is a wonderful addition to any collection of children’s books, or for any expectant parents. Penny Gentieu has once again captured cherished moments in the development of children for all to see and enjoy.
Alicia D. Wall is an elementary school teacher and, at press time, an expectant mother of triplets.
The anticipation and excitement surrounding the arrival of a baby can be felt to some degree by all ages. However, younger children’s expectations may quickly turn to disappointment when the newborn infant does not walk, talk, or play games. Expectant parents find it challenging, trying to educate and prepare themselves; how can children be taught […]
Wonderfully chaotic. This is how the authors of Mom Central generously describe the lives of typical parents. The first adjective is occasionally up for debate, but the second one is a perennially accurate description. Mom Central is a resource designed to create order from chaos. Bless them.
Lists are good, but lists only work when they can be found. Mom Central is essentially a books of lists just about every list a family will ever need permanently organized, color-coded, transportable, and updatable.
The authors created Mom Central when the disparity between business management and family management became all too frustratingly apparent. They sought to adapt the “organizational structure and proactive management systems” of their professional lives to the needs of their home lives. The most crucial material comes first: “Emergency and Medical.” Caregivers have immediate access to all pertinent information: family names and addresses; phone numbers for police, poison control, neighbors, pediatricians, etc. It includes “Permission to Treat” forms and charts for past and present medications and vaccinations.
Other headings and some of their highlights include “Children ∧ Family” (back-to-school shopping, homework planning, goal-setting); “Child Care” (finding a nanny, selecting a Day Care, information for sitters); “Grown Ups” (family history, safe deposit box, daily to-do list, birthdays, shopping lists); “Entertaining” (child and adult party planners, holidays); “Home, Car ∧ Pet” (capital improvements and repairs, safety and maintenance, warranty records, car information, pet care while away, whom to contact for utilities and services); “Travel” (planning for day trips and longer outings, packing).
Don’t let the number of headings be intimidating: The authors stress that Mom Central should help relieve stress. It’s designed to accommodate individual needs and personal organizational thresholds. Even if only one or two sections are used, life could be immeasurably simplified. Who couldn’t use a little more order and a little less chaos? By the way, Mom Central is an act of charity itself, but the authors take it a step further and donate part of the proceeds to charities benefiting women and children. Reviewed by Joanna Brichetto.
Wonderfully chaotic. This is how the authors of Mom Central generously describe the lives of typical parents. The first adjective is occasionally up for debate, but the second one is a perennially accurate description. Mom Central is a resource designed to create order from chaos. Bless them. Lists are good, but lists only work when […]
Television’s much-awarded broadcast reporter Cokie Roberts might intimidate us ordinary souls if she weren’t so personal, warm, and insightful. Her book, We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters part memoir, part social history demonstrates these qualities. Roberts’s title makes her chief point: no matter how political and social changes revise women’s lives, women’s nature remains the same.
“Women,” she says, “have always been multiple-minded.” Rather than regarding multiple-mindedness as a handicap, Roberts sees it as a strength. Women by necessity, she claims, will always focus on many things at once, jobs and family, professional life and personal life. Roberts, herself a highly successful professional woman, notes that “women are connected throughout time and regardless of place.” Our Mothers’ Daughters develops this theme in 13 chapters organized around women’s various roles. The anecdote-filled chapters illustrate women’s toughness, tenderness, and flexibility at home as well as in more public arenas. Chapters on “Sister,” “Aunt,” “Wife,” and “Mother/Daughter” draw on Roberts’s personal life. Daughter of Hale Boggs, the Louisiana congressman lost in a plane crash in Alaska, and Lindy Boggs, herself a member of Congress and now Ambassador to the Vatican, Cokie says “Politics is the family business.” “Sister,” a moving prose elegy, deals with Roberts’s sister Barbara’s death from cancer. “Mother/Daughter” praises her mother’s strength, wisdom, good sense, and sense of humor. When Roberts’s children were young, Grandma Lindy lived on Bourbon Street. “I used to jokingly chant [to my kids], ÔOver the hills and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go,’ as we tripped our way past the denizens of that naughty neighborhood.” “Aunt” registers appreciation of the network of southern women Roberts grew up in, while “Friend” expresses appreciation for the network of professional women that fostered Roberts’s career. For women’s more public roles, Roberts draws on experiences gleaned from her years as a reporter. “Politician” points out the importance of women being active in politics despite the difficult, sometimes tawdry, world politicians inhabit. “Consumer Advocate” profiles Esther Peterson, the woman responsible for truth-in-advertising package labeling. “First-Class Mechanic” chronicles the inspiring story of Eva Oliver of Baton Rouge, a mother who got off welfare and now counsels other women. “Civil Rights Activist” traces the career of 85-year-old Dorothy Height, President of the National Council of Negro Women. Roberts has unearthed fascinating tales of women in business, women in the service, women in reporting. She weaves them together in clear, informal prose well-spiked with her own warm personality.
Reviewed by Joanne Lewis Sears.
Television’s much-awarded broadcast reporter Cokie Roberts might intimidate us ordinary souls if she weren’t so personal, warm, and insightful. Her book, We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters part memoir, part social history demonstrates these qualities. Roberts’s title makes her chief point: no matter how political and social changes revise women’s lives, women’s nature remains the same. […]
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon—or even a parenting author—to figure out how to raise a reader. All it takes is a cozy lap, a pair of loving arms, an open book and a few common-sense tips.
Read early. True, newborns don’t know a cat from a hat. And toddlers are more wiggle worms than bookworms. But there’s no better way to get a child in the reading habit than getting off to an early start. Build storytime into your little one’s routine right from the beginning.
Read often. Bedtime is the obvious time for storytime—and a particularly good one, too, especially if it comes after a soothing bath (a wound-down little one is more open to sitting down—and more receptive to listening). Plus, bedtime stories, especially when combined with cuddles, can quickly become a treasured ritual on both sides of the armchair—the perfectly relaxing end to your child’s busy day . . . and yours. Another good time to get a child hooked on books: wakeup time. By catching your bookworm early, while she’s still sleepy, you’ll minimize squirming and maximize attention. And then—there’s any time. Tote a book with you wherever you go and whatever you’re doing and reading will become your little one’s favorite go-to distraction.
Issue an all-access book pass. Keep stacks of books of every variety everywhere in your home—by your bed, on the coffee table, next to the armchair, in the kitchen, in the car and definitely in your child’s room. Don’t make any book (except, perhaps, a very valuable one) off-limits to your little one. Even a toddler who tends to devour literature (as in, bite on edges and chew paper) should be allowed supervised page-turning stints. When shelving your child’s books, keep them accessible on low, open shelves or in easy-to-reach bins.
Be a borrower (and maybe a lender, too). The best way to keep a fresh stash of reading material at the ready? Make a weekly trip to the library with your budding book buddy. Don’t have a library in your neighborhood? Set up your own book co-op with fellow playgroup or preschool parents.
Get ready to repeat. Most toddlers and preschoolers can’t get enough of a good thing—they find it comforting to hear the same book over and over, night after night, day after day. But there’s another reason why little ones benefit from the read-and-repeat approach to storytime: When you’re new to the language game, repetition helps you pick up skills faster. Being able to fill in the last word in a line or anticipate the so-familiar plot is also super-satisfying.
Do some editing—and editorializing. While you can definitely read a book to your tot straight through, don’t feel obligated to stick to the script verbatim. If too many hard-to-understand words are making your captive audience restless, edit them down or out. Paraphrase. Summarize. Simplify.
Make reading interactive. Even a child who doesn’t yet know an A from a Z can point to the doggy, the boy on the bicycle, the sun in the sky, the monkey in the zoo. Or answer simple reading comprehension questions (“What is the girl eating?” “Where is the mommy going?” “Is the boy happy or sad?”). Not only does interaction enhance learning but it boosts enjoyment and attention span, too.
Read to yourself. Children are master mimics—especially when it comes to their parents—and they’re always more likely to do what you do than what you say. So to raise a reader, be a reader. Never had the reading bug? Try contracting it. Join a book club. Check out reading lists online. And make sure your little one catches you reading often.
Power off. Even books that come with dials, flaps and pop-ups can’t compete with the light-and-sound show of computer games and TV. Wired toddlers and preschoolers—or those who spend too much time zoning out in front of a TV screen—may have a harder time sitting still for words and pictures on a page. In fact, research has shown a 10 percent increase in the risk of attention problems later on for every hour per day of TV a tyke watches now. So limit TV time (the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time at all for the two-and-under set) and computer time. Using the TV for background noise? Power that off, too.
Nurture that love of reading, but don’t push it. If you’ve been a parent for any amount of time you know this above all: Pushing will get you nowhere. Not when it comes to using the potty, not when it comes to eating—and definitely not when it comes to reading. Make reading a part of your family’s daily routine—but also don’t forget to make it fun.
Heidi Murkoff is the author of the What To Expect series of pregnancy and parenting guides that have sold more than 34 million copies. The latest book in the series is What to Expect the Second Year: From 12 to 24 Months. Murkoff lives in Southern California with her husband, Erik, and two children.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon—or even a parenting author—to figure out how to raise a reader. All it takes is a cozy lap, a pair of loving arms, an open book and a few common-sense tips. Read early. True, newborns don’t know a cat from a hat. And toddlers are […]
The Mozart Effect¨ For Children: Awakening Your Child’s Mind, Health, and Creativity with Music Want to help your child be a musical genius? Or simply a well-adjusted, musically exposed child? Much has been said in recent years about how classical music stimulates brain development in young children, leading not only to increased musical talent but to added math prowess and overall I.Q. as well.
Regardless of whether this is true (author Don Campbell believes wholeheartedly in what he has termed the “Mozart Effect”), who can argue with the benefits of introducing children to music and rhythm at an early age? Campbell, who wrote the best-selling The Mozart Effect about music’s power on the body, spirit, and intellect, now writes The Mozart Effect for Children, an informative guide for parents and educators. Whether you want to “crawl, reach and clap” with a toddler or create a musical sense of identity in a 10-year-old, you’ll find a symphony of suggestions, organized in various age-relevant chapters.
For instance, Campbell notes that for toddlers, language development in general often parallels that of musical ability. He suggests specific games and songs, not just Mozart, but everything from nursery rhymes to rock. Incorporating music into all sorts of daily activities “gives kids a chance to develop basic timing, coordination, creativity, and problem-solving skills,” Campbell explains.
Music is indeed an area I’d like to incorporate more into my own family life. Our 15-month twins are doing just as Campbell predicts, starting to sing as they form their first words. It’s a joy to watch how their little bodies respond to rhythm and dance. I plan to keep Campbell’s book as a reference for them and their older brother as well.
Campbell also gives plenty of fun suggestions for older children, such as “learning to the beat,” making spelling lessons more fun by practicing words to different rhythmic patterns. Several activities address learning to read: “try turning down the lights a bit and playing Mozart, Vivaldi, Scarlatti, or Bach softly in the background as your child reads aloud.” One father set the multiplication tables to music, with great success for his previously reluctant mathematician.
Regardless of your family’s musical knowledge or talents, The Mozart Effect for Children is full of easy, practical suggestions to help children excel in school and learn to fully appreciate music. So sing, dance, and clap to your heart’s delight! Everyone will be the better for it.
Alice Cary sings, dances, and claps from her home in Groton, Massachusetts.
The Mozart Effect¨ For Children: Awakening Your Child’s Mind, Health, and Creativity with Music Want to help your child be a musical genius? Or simply a well-adjusted, musically exposed child? Much has been said in recent years about how classical music stimulates brain development in young children, leading not only to increased musical talent but […]
With so many parenting resources out there these days, do you really need another one? In the case of Attachment Parenting, the answer is yes. The term attachment parenting was coined by pediatrician William Sears, and refers to a method of child-rearing that focuses on intuitive care of infants and children. In the introduction by Dr. Sears, the features of attachment parenting are described as the Ôbaby b’s’: birth bonding, breastfeeding, bedsharing (sleeping with your baby), babywearing (carrying your baby in a sling), and belief in the signal value of an infant’s cry. Granju and Kennedy explain in the first paragraphs that their book is fundamentally different from typical parenting books, particularly because this philosophy trusts that the parents in partnership with the child are the parenting experts. No one author, doctor, or other person can or should tell a parent exactly when their infant should sleep, eat, or even cry. In addition, many of the philosophical principles, such as responding quickly to an infant’s cries, run counter to those that permeate American parenting in the 20th century.
After defining attachment parenting in depth, Granju and Kennedy offer advice about how to prepare for the baby on the way and an attachment-style birth. Much of the rest of the book is devoted to the two most controversial aspects of attachment parenting: extended breastfeeding and sharing sleep. For those concerned that this style conflicts with working outside the home, Attachment Parenting spends a chapter addressing the issue, and even goes so far as to provide a template letter requesting the creation of a baby-friendly workplace.
Through the use of cross-cultural comparisons, anecdotal evidence, and excerpts by researchers, the authors present evidence that attachment parenting works in all types of families. It’s reassuring to read about the successful experiences of other parents and to learn how this parenting style has affected their lives and relationships with their children.
For both those familiar with attachment parenting and neophytes, some of the strongest aspects of the book are the comprehensive lists of like-minded publications and electronic media. News-groups, websites, magazines, and even other parenting books are referenced. Attachment Parenting is a must for those who plan to attachment parent.
With so many parenting resources out there these days, do you really need another one? In the case of Attachment Parenting, the answer is yes. The term attachment parenting was coined by pediatrician William Sears, and refers to a method of child-rearing that focuses on intuitive care of infants and children. In the introduction by […]
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Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
Sean Adams has dialed down the dystopian quotient from his first satirical novel, The Heap, but that element is still very much present in The Thing in the Snow.
