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Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Bottled Up by Suzanne Barston

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Of course, Suzanne Barston intended to breastfeed. She intended to be a good mom – and, as the subject of internet-based reality show hosted by Pampers.com, she had incentive to do everything right.

When breastfeeding went poorly and she started supplementing, eventually giving up on breastfeeding entirely, she spent months ashamed over her “failure” before deciding to embrace her ultimate decision as “The Fearless Formula Feeder” (the blog where she can now be found.

Bottled Up follows some of Suzanne’s journey, but it goes far beyond a memoir. Barston argues that breastfeeding is not a good option for many women, does not live up to its extravagant health claims, and is overly politicized.

As an avid breastfeeding promoter (a good portion of my job is helping women understand the benefits of breastfeeding and helping them to successfully initiate and maintain breastfeeding), this book was frustrating, challenging, and sometimes painful – but in a good way.

Barston begins by arguing that breastfeeding promotion is all about fear and guilt: fear that you’ll be perceived as a bad mother (which makes you choose to breastfeed in the first place) and guilt that you weren’t able or willing to breastfeed (when you choose not to breastfeed or end up quitting.) I do not doubt that there is plenty of fear and guilt wrapped up in breastfeeding. There is a lot of fear and guilt wrapped up in parenting in general. But I wonder if this is how the women who enter my office perceive me to be operating. Do they feel that I am trying to use fear to induce them to breastfeed when I tell them about the marvelous immunological benefits of breastmilk and the many childhood ailments that breastfed babies have reduced risk for? Does the suggestion of risk reduction mean fear mongering? Many of these women have no reason to fear postpartum hemorrhage, yet I might still tell them that breastfeeding in the immediate postpartum reduces risk of postpartum hemorrhage. Does this produce fear for an adverse event (hemorrhage) rather than wonder at the marvels of our bodies (what I experience when I think about the effects of the hormone milieu of early postpartum breastfeeeding)? Do the women who didn’t breastfeed or didn’t breastfeed for long with their earlier children feel guilt when I encourage them that every breastfeeding experience is different and that just because they had some difficulties with one child does’t mean they’ll have those same difficulties with the next? Or do they understand that information as I intend it – to empower them to make a decision now unbounded by the fear of past experiences?

Next Barston discusses “lactation failures”, giving herself as a prime example. She started supplementing at two days when her infant had lost 10% of his body weight and was experiencing jaundice from AB-O blood incompatibility. The hospital pediatrician had offered Barston an option: “waiting it out” or supplementing with formula – and Barston chose supplementing, hoping to get herself and her baby out of the hospital as quickly as possible. Based on this experience, and a review of the many medical conditions for which the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine does not feel supplementation is warranted, Barston believes that the today’s medical community is inappropriately disinclined to supplement and does so at the expense of infants – and their mothers. She argues that the common medical belief that only 1-5% of women experience primary lactation failure is scientifically baseless and that a much greater proportion of women are physically unable to breastfeed.

As a breastfeeding advocate, I frequently remind women that most women can successfully produce sufficient milk for their babies. I believe the 1-5% number, despite it being, yes, just an estimate. The simple fact is that there is no way for us to know, of those women who give up breastfeeding or supplement on day 2, how many of those women were incapable of producing sufficient milk and how many simply hadn’t had their milk “come in” yet (It’s a rare woman who has mature and voluminous milk on the second day postpartum – a more typical timeline is 3-5 days postpartum.) The number of women who enter my office complaining of engorgement after quitting breastfeeding because they “didn’t make enough” is astounding. I believe that there is true primary lactation failure. It exists. Other women (like my sister-in-law) experience secondary lactation failure, where their milk supply suddenly disappears due to extreme stress or starting a breastfeeding incompatible form of birth control. But the majority of women, including the ones who come into my office saying they quit because they weren’t making enough, are physiologically capable of producing breastmilk (and in sufficient quantities to meet their infant’s needs.)

I encourage women not to supplement – especially not in the first two weeks. I discuss what they can expect in those first two weeks. Baby might be really drowsy in the hospital and then “suddenly” be hungry all the time once you get home. That’s normal and not a sign that you don’t have enough milk. Normal babies have tiny stomachs that can’t stretch – they need to eat 8-12 times a day in those early days. Normal babies lose weight in their first few days of life. This is because they started out with a lot of fluid (even more if you had an IV during delivery), it doesn’t mean you don’t have enough milk. Your milk will start out yellowish and if you tried pumping it, you might only see a few drops in the bottle because the rest is stuck in the tubing. This is colostrum, it’s wonderful and he doesn’t need large amounts at a time (remember how little his tummy is?) What’s more, baby is better at getting milk from your breasts than the pump – don’t try to pump to figure out how much you’re making. Etc, etc, etc. I repeat it at least a dozen times in my “what to expect” speech: “That doesn’t mean you’re not making enough milk.” What does mean you’re not making enough milk? I educate them on that too – and I encourage them to let that be a sign for them to drop by the breastfeeding clinic at the hospital where they delivered. Most of the time, I explain, insufficient milk supply at the beginning is correctable. A lactation consultant (free at the hospital you delivered at in Wichita) can help you troubleshoot what’s going on with yours – they can evaluate latch and see if baby has a tongue tie or is pulling his lower lip in; they can do before and after weights to see how much transfer is actually taking place, they can walk through your breastfeeding routine and help you learn how to increase your supply. If your baby is showing some of the warning signs of not enough milk, don’t supplement, instead get yourself over to a lactation consultant!

In other words, I spout the stuff Barston complains about.

At the end of the second chapter, Barston explains how the seventh lactation consultant she and her son saw finally discovered the cause for the pain she had been experiencing while breastfeeding. Her son was tongue-tied. Barston describes how common this situation is and takes it as another proof that breastfeeding advocates are lying when they say that most women are able to breastfeed.

My chest aches and my eyes fill with tears.

I pray that I am not one of the six lactation consultants who offered ineffective advice without truly discovering the cause of breastfeeding difficulties. I pray I’m not one who tells women to just try harder, just keep going, it’ll get better without addressing their real needs.

Tongue tie is a true breastfeeding complication – but it doesn’t make breastfeeding impossible. A skilled lactation consultant can help the mother of many tongue-tied babies to find a position that allows for sufficient breastmilk transfer and avoids pain for the mother and the child. If the first consultant had discovered the tongue-tie, had helped Barston find a good position that worked for her and her child, would this book exist? Probably not.

Like I said, this book was frustrating, challenging, and sometimes painful.

I’m glad I read it. I feel it has given me much more perspective into how women who have “failed” at breastfeeding perceive our current breastfeeding culture – and how the breastfeeding community has let down some vulnerable mothers. Reading this enhanced my belief that most women know that breastfeeding is good for their babies – they don’t need to be convinced of breastfeeding’s benefits. Instead, they need to be educated regarding how to breastfeed, what to expect, how to know if something’s going well or poorly, and how to get help. And they need to receive careful individualized help when they ask for it. As breastfeeding support people, we need to ask questions, listen to mothers, and determine root causes of breastfeeding difficulties before we start handing out prescriptive advice (breastfeed more, put some lanolin on it, eat oatmeal). And we need to stop making the ideal the enemy of the good. We need to admit that many women are going to supplement even though we know exclusive breastfeeding is the best route – and we need to help them give baby as much breastmilk as they are willing or able to give.

I think this is a valuable book for all of us in breastfeeding support professions.

I do not think it’s a good book for mothers in general. Barston swings so far from the “breast is best” that she calls into question pretty much every bit of breastfeeding research that’s ever been done. Now, it’s true that breastfeeding research (like all research, but especially that sort that deals with human choices) is far from perfect, but the bulk of the evidence supports breastfeeding as the optimal feeding choice for both mothers and infants. The undecided reader of this book (or maybe the one who only knows from her friends who latched their baby on once that breastfeeding hurts) might get the impression that breastmilk substitutes are basically as good as breastmilk. And that just isn’t true. Breastmilk substitutes have been a lifesaver to infants whose mothers have been unable to breastfeed for all sorts of reasons. They are designed by scientists to meet an infant’s needs the best we know how. But breastmilk substitutes are to breastmilk what vegan bacon is to real bacon – an awfully poor substitute. If you can give your child breastmilk, it’s by far the better option.

I realize that this is an emotionally charged issue – and that my unapologetic preference for breastmilk over breastmilk substitutes makes me subject to accusations of insensitivity. Please believe me that I am not judging the women who don’t breastfeed or feel that they can’t breastfeed (and I certainly hope you don’t believe I’m judging the women who actually can’t breastfeed despite their desire to do so!) In fact, I frequently find myself reminding women that every drop of breastmilk their babies did get made a difference – and that they can wear their two weeks of breastfeeding proudly. I cheer for the women whose babies get formula during the day but who breastfeed at night because it’s easier than getting up to make a bottle – Good for them! I sympathize with the women who were told by a doctor or someone else that they needed to start supplementing or else and who found their supply dwindling as a result. And I try to make sure that every pregnant woman who comes into my office has more than just information about the benefits of breastfeeding but the practical help she needs to be successful at breastfeeding – whether that be for the three days she’s in the hospital, for the six weeks she’s at home with baby before returning to work, for six months combined with formula, or for two years with never a bottle to be found.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Breastfeeding – social aspects
Synopsis: Barston argues against the current breastfeeding culture and argues that breastfeeding is not necessarily the best choice for moms and babies.
Recommendation: Recommended for breastfeeding support people as a call to compassionate care, but not really recommended otherwise.

Categories Book Notes

Book Notes: Paranoid Parenting (Part 4)

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I’m mostly writing notes to evaluate Furedi’s arguments and add my own thoughts. If you’re interested, you can check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Chapter 4: Parenting on Demand

Chapter 4 starts with a complaint about some of the hallmarks of attachment parenting (feeding on demand, cosleeping, baby wearing, and avoiding “crying it out”) – but quickly morphs into something else entirely. The bulk of the chapter deals with what Furedi perceives as new roles of parents: parents as “full-time lovers” of their children, parents as therapists and healers, and parents as teachers. In each of these roles, Furedi explains how the definition of parenting has changed in recent years. Yes, parents have always been expected to love their children, but love has been redefined into emotional attentiveness, seen especially in play and separate from caring for a child’s physical needs. Furedi speaks of the role of parents in developing a child’s “emotional intelligence” and disparages the modern trend for constant attentiveness to a child’s emotional state, which he sees as complicating a child’s feelings. He also talks about a new role of parents in “supporting a child’s learning”, looking at how much time the average parent spends helping their children with homework (which Furedi purports is more time than the official guidelines suggest children should be spending on homework.)

This chapter was difficult for me to read and analyze. Furedi’s initial complaints about attachment parenting and his later complaints about new roles of parents seem disconnected – the only similarity between attachment parenting and the other complaints is the idea that a parent should be constantly attentive to a child’s needs. At the same time, I see a distinct difference between feeding “on demand” (a philosophy that I very much espouse-although I tend to call it “per infant hunger/fullness cues”) and spending large amounts of energy trying to decode your preschooler’s emotions. Telling parents to feed their infants when they are hungry is different than telling parents that they must always be on alert lest they emotionally damage their child.

Another difficulty for me was Furedi’s discussion of parents as teachers. I was homeschooled. My parents were my teachers. I intend to homeschool my own children. I feel strongly that parents ARE teachers, regardless of whether they take on that mantle or not. That said, I have my doubts about the homework little ones are sent home with – and about how much time parents are spending doing it. What on earth are kids doing in school all day that they need to be doing 5-10 hours of homework at home on top of it? I think I spent ten hours a week doing school, period. By the time I was in third grade, I needed only minimal direction from my mom. She certainly wasn’t spending 10 hours a week helping me with schoolwork (and remember, she was my only teacher.) I think parents should be teachers, are teachers. But I wonder if maybe parents and school systems are getting a little too caught up on “schoolwork” and “learning activities” (possibly at the expense of actual learning – and to the stress of parents everywhere.)

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan

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So, apparently economics is really boring. Or at least, it is if your only exposure is a high school or college Econ 101.

I never had the dubious pleasure of taking Econ 101, so I’ve always considered economics to be fun.

Charles Wheelan’s Naked Economics seeks to undo this apparently common misconception by “undressing” economics from the equations that presumably cause the average economics student to consider economics boring.

Since I’ve never considered economics boring, I don’t know how well this book succeeds at its goal – I do, however, know that I found this to be a simple and fascinating introduction to economics.

Wheelan addresses how markets work, what incentives do, how governments help and hinder things, how to measure economies, what the federal reserve does, and much more.

It’s great. It defines terms, fleshes out principles, and makes economics absolutely simple.

But I like economics. So I really can’t say much.

Except that, if you don’t like economics or have always been intimidated by it, you should probably check this book out.

It might just change your view of the “dismal science”.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Economics
Synopsis: Wheelan gives a basic no-math introduction to economics.
Recommendation: If you find your eyes glazing over when people start talking economics – or if you enjoy economics – this is a good introduction to the wonderful (actually very interesting) world of economics.

Categories Book Notes

Book Notes: Paranoid Parenting (Part 3)

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I’m mostly writing notes to evaluate Furedi’s arguments and add my own thoughts. If you’re interested, you can check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Chapter 3: Parents as Gods
In chapter 3, Furedi goes deeper into a concept he introduced in the previous chapter – infant determinism (also referred to by Furedi as “parental determinism”.) This idea purports that parents are uniquely responsible for all sorts of childhood and adult behavior – and that therefore parents should take a strong role in actively shaping their children’s lives (because if they don’t do it intentionally, they will be sure to mess up their children!)

“Today, parenting has been transformed into an all-purpose independent variable that seems to explain everything about an infant’s development.”

The author goes through a huge list of things that modern science blames on parenting – the terrible twos, school failure, depression, eating disorders, and more. Here’s where he starts talking a bit on my area of expertise: nutrition.

“Nutritionists claim that many parents are mistaken in the belief that a healthy diet for an adult is a healthy diet for children. It is claimed that babies and toddlers who receive normal adult fare are deprived of energy-dense food and therefore lack the right calorie intake….Parents not only have to constantly monitor the food they give to their toddlers, they also have to set the right example during meals.”

Here’s where I wonder if these are the messages parents are really receiving – because they’re certainly not the messages I’m sharing. The truth is that many people are mistaken in their beliefs about what constitutes a healthy diet, period. While extreme low-fat diets were popular, there were indeed parents who mistakenly thought that their infants and toddlers should go low-fat too – and those infants ended up with essential fatty acid deficiencies. But extremely low-fat diets actually aren’t healthy for anyone (and hopefully, no dietitians are spouting that in 2014!) – and children are actually uniquely vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies (as opposed to adults) because they’re still building their bodies (as opposed to maintaining them as adults are.) And setting a good example? Is he really complaining about that advice? It seems like common sense that if you expect your kid to eat vegetables, it helps if they see you eating vegetables too.

The disconnect between what I share as nutritional parenting advice (and really, my job is to give parenting advice) and what Furedi perceives as current nutritional parenting advice makes me wonder where else the messages researchers and educators give are transformed into paranoia.

And then I look at Furedi’s sources: Mother & Baby magazine, Prima Baby magazine, Baby magazine, Parents magazine. These magazines were purportedly quoting experts or giving advice based on research – but I’m not at all confident that journalists have the skills required to give advice based on scientific research. I see it all the time with nutrition. A new study comes out suggesting that high intake of cinnamon increases insulin sensitivity. This is interesting, but hardly something to start giving nutritional advice based upon. Yet Fitness magazine has a big feature full of cinnamon-rich recipes announcing that this is a scientific way to prevent diabetes. The advice, of course, pays no attention to the minimum dose required for response, the magnitude of the response, or the quality of the study. I suspect that much of the “scientific” parenting advice one reads in parenting magazines is similar.

But don’t blame it on the experts, this time. If you want someone to tar and feather, tar and feather the journalists who prey on parent’s fears and inappropriately translate research into guidelines.

That said, Furedi does have a good point to make: children tend to be remarkably resilient. The magnitude of these parenting effects is nowhere near as large as the popular media would have you think. My parents didn’t follow all the nutritional advice I give my clients (and I actually give them good advice :-P) – and I’m not a fatso with an eating disorder. It’s okay to relax – you don’t have to follow every new fad the parenting magazines tout in order to not mess up your child.

Categories Book Notes

Book Notes: Paranoid Parenting by Frank Furedi (Part 2)

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I’m mostly writing notes to evaluate Furedi’s arguments and add my own thoughts. If you’re interested, you can check out my introductory comments here.

Chapter 2:The Myth of the Vulnerable Child
Furedi argues that today’s children are regarded as uniquely vulnerable to outside forces (almost all of which are considered risks) and NOT resilient to manage such outside forces. As a result, parents seek to minimize all risks, not considering any potential benefits of risk. Furedi points to the modern playground as an example of the outerworking of this fear of exposing children to risk.

“It is easy to overlook the fact that the concept of children at risk is a relatively recent invention. As I argue elswewhere, this way of imagining childhood involves a redefinition both of risk and of childhood. Until recently, risks were not interpreted by definition as bad things. We used to talk about good, worthwhile risks as well as bad, foolish ones. Risks were seen as a challenging aspect of children’s lives. Today, we are so afraid of risk that we have invented the concept of children at risk. A child that is at risk requires constant vigilance and adult supervision.”

But the myth of childhood vulnerability is not limited to physical vulnerability to danger. Today’s parenting culture considers children to be emotionally and developmentally at risk, subject to what one psychologist calls “infant determinism”. Without just the right childhood circumstances, a child could be scarred for life – destined to be a psychopath or mentally ill. Yet this concept, while popular, is largely ungrounded in empirical evidence. Yes, infants in third world orphanages who are never touched or held are more likely to experience psychological difficulties – but these extreme examples do not prove that children in general are at risk of developmental and psychological issues if they are not held or watched every moment. Children are much more resilient, both physically and psychologically, than current parenting culture wants to admit.

Furedi’s playground argument hits home with me. The modern playground is so far removed from the playground of my childhood that I reflected to my husband (and to Facebook) that the modern playground seems designed to eliminate all risks, including the risk of gross motor development.

While we were dating, Daniel and I took my niece to one of the old playgrounds in my parent’s neighborhood. She was maybe 18 months and I stood a step behind her, terrified, as I let her climb the slide’s steps all by herself. I was fully aware of the risks, of the rails that were simply something for her to grab to help her climb, not something that would keep her from falling 10 or more feet to the ground if she slipped. I was aware that, if the weather were warmer, the metal of the slide could get hot and burn her. My heart was in my chest. But I value learning and independence. I think that’s important. I took the precaution of being a step behind her so she was within hands reach if she faltered. But I let her climb by herself.

Last year, a whole group of our family went to another of my parents’ old playgrounds (they have three old playgrounds within walking distance!) My sister Anna got on the merry-go-round (yes, it actually has one of those) with the Little Miss (who was now two and half) and Daniel pushed them. He went faster and faster and faster while I bit my fingernails watching them turn. I felt sure that Anna was about to throw up and feared that the Little Miss would emerge from the experience terrified of her uncle Daniel. Anna cried uncle and Daniel stopped them. They stepped off the merry-go-round and the Little Miss slowly reoriented to the world. When she found her bearings, she turned towards Daniel and demanded “Again.”

Children are resilient. Yes, risks exist – but so do opportunities that can’t be obtained without risk.

A child broke her arm after falling out of a tree. Her father contemplated banning tree-climbing. I broke my collar bone at age 2 falling out of bed. Perhaps we should also ban bed-sleeping. I say it ironically, but take a look at parenting literature and you’ll read of the advantages of toddler beds set close to the floor, maybe even with a soft mat alongside to break a child’s fall. You can add a mesh rail to your child’s bed to prevent falling entirely, but you must be careful lest your child get stuck between the bed and the rail – another risk.

All of us have stories of risks we took as children. We have stories of risky behavior that didn’t result in damage and risky behavior that did actually hurt us. Most of not only survived but thrived despite (or even because of) these experiences.

But it doesn’t stop with physical risks. We have emotionally “traumatic” experiences in our memories too. I slept in my closet on a pile of dirty clothes for weeks at a time because I got tired of having my sister tickle me in the bed we shared. One of my siblings grabbed a knife from the kitchen and threatened me with it. A drunk man got too close for comfort when I was waiting for my mom after ballet class when I was nine or ten. I experienced fear and anger as a child – but I also experienced love and safety and comradery. Today, I laugh at those “traumatic” stories and have great relationships with my siblings.

Ironically, the “traumatic” experience from my childhood that still has the power to excite me to anger is of an overprotective cop who got angry with my mother for leaving six of her children (with their eleven year old sister- me) in their wrecked van by the side of the highway while she called for help from the car of a Good Samaritan who stopped a hundred feet or less ahead of us. I still become angry when I think of someone daring to disapprove of my mom’s sensible action in the face of our accident.

So there you have it. Kids are resilient – physically and emotionally. Risks exists, but are not always bad. Parents need not be paralyzed with fear of risk – instead, they should consider which risks are truly problematic and how to wisely manage risk while maximizing childhood.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

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I’ve been reading and enjoying Georgette Heyer since my early teenage years, but until this month, I could not have pointed out a particular Heyer book as my favorite. I am now happy to announce that Cotillion has filled that long open spot.

The rich but notoriously tight-fisted Matthew Penicuik has summoned his four grandnephews to his country home, declaring that he intends to settle his will. Almost everyone understands what this means. Penicuik intends to settle his fortune on his ward, Miss Kitty Charing – and intends that one of his grandnephews marry her. In fact, he so intends that one of his grandnephews marry her that he makes her inheriting conditional upon this term. If she does not marry one of the four, Uncle Matthew will leave his fortune to charity, leaving Kitty penniless and his nephews without any portion of his estate.

After Uncle Matthew announces his intentions to the two of his four nephews who answered the summons, he leaves his nephews with Kitty in the drawing room. Dim-witted Lord Dolphinton, at his mother’s behest, announces to Kitty that he is an earl and therefore a desirable match. Kitty clearly sees the designs of Lady Dolphinton behind this proposal and graciously declines Dolph’s offer – much to his delight. At this, the Reverend Hugh Rattray announces his own suit. He, of course, has no desire for the money, but does not wish for Kitty to end up penniless – and since neither Freddy nor Jack have shown up to press their own suits, he shall do the honors. Kitty summarily rejects this offer too and decides to run away, so humiliating is this whole situation.

But in the course of her running away, she happens upon “Cousin Freddy” who is a bit late in coming to hear his uncle’s announcement. He received the message late and hadn’t intended to go anyway since he had no interest in his great-uncle’s fortune (and no thought that the way of obtaining it would be to marry Kitty.) Yet when Cousin Freddy ran into Cousin Jack at a club, Jack had convinced Freddy that he really ought to go. When Kitty runs into Freddy, she at first berates him for coming – she had thought better of him than to angle after her for money – and then begs him to become engaged to her once she realizes that he had no intention of offering for her.

Her would be her chance, she thought. If she were betrothed to Freddy, she could go to London to visit his mother and enjoy a month-long reprieve from her tiresome life in the country. She could at last see the town – and perhaps, well, see… But no, of course, she had no desire to see Jack. That was not at all the plan. Although…betrothed to Freddy, she could perhaps prove to Jack that she wasn’t just waiting for him to offer for her in his own sweet time.

Thus begins a delightful romp of sham engagements and secret engagements and attractions that can never turn into engagements. That said, it’s not a super-sappy romance full of long speeches and loverly looks. Instead, it’s like watching a complicated country dance, in which partners are always switching and the usual comedies of unmatched partners arise.

I highly recommend this particular Heyer title.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: Regency Romance
Synopsis: Country-bred orphaned Kitty embarks upon a month in London under the watchful eye of her faux-fiance
Recommendation: If you like romances or Heyer or comedy – or if you’ve been told you should read Heyer at some point – this is the book for you.

Categories Book Notes

Book Notes: Paranoid Parenting by Frank Furedi

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I found myself nodding and mm-hmming all the way through Frank Furedi’s Paranoid Parenting but was curiously unable to summarize Furedi’s arguments to my husband after I was done. That’s always a bit of a frightening prospect, because it suggests that I was reading to confirm my own biases rather than reading with a critical eye. As a result, I’ve chosen to reread the book, summarizing the author’s arguments in each chapter in order to give me opportunity to critically evaluate them. And, since blogging gives me a platform to share my thoughts, you get to peek at my notes (or skip them, if you prefer.)

Introduction
In the introduction, the author sets up the problem: In today’s world, everything is seen as threat to children and experts proclaim that there is one right way to parent properly (except that the experts disagree with one another as to what this one right way is) and that everyone who doesn’t do it their way is not only neglectful but potentially abusive – with the result that parents no longer trust their own judgment and hyper-parent lest they somehow allow their child to do or be exposed to something dangerous.

Chapter 1: Making Sense of Parental Paranoia
According to Furedi, parental paranoia is the result of three factors: an obsession with safety, a view that parental supervision is always positive, and a breakdown of adult solidarity. The first two are pretty self-explanatory, and I’m sure we can identify plenty of examples from our own experience. The third is a little different. Furedi posits that in the past, other adults were considered to be potential allies in child-rearing. Now, other adults are seen as potential threats to children, such that parents no longer trust other adults to supervise their children and other adults are fearful to interact with children lest they set off “stranger danger” alerts. The result is that parents are isolated – and children over-supervised.

The “breakdown of adult solidarity” is a new concept for me – and one that I struggle with (in a largely emotion-driven way). I am exposed to a lot of parents in my work with WIC. Most of these parents are pretty normal and, while I disagree with them on several parenting points (I am pretty opinionated when it comes to childrearing – and pretty much anything, really), I acknowledge that they are not people to be feared. I also see what is likely a disproportionate amount of truly bad parents – parents who scream at their children, who abuse their children physically, who expose their unborn babies to methamphetamine. I see the little ones who have been removed from their parents’ homes, who have marks from where their parents hit them or restrained them. I see the little ones who overeat once they get into foster care because for the first time in their life they have ready access to real food (as opposed to chips scrounged from the floor where they fell.) I would never put a child in these bad parents’ care – but I’m not worried that they’ll cause damage to a child not in their care. I don’t fear that these adults would rage at someone else’s child in a public park.

The parents I fear are… upper middle class mommies. I fear the people who jumped on Lenore Skenazy (of Free Range Kids) for letting her 9 year old ride the subway. I fear that over-protective mothers might prevent my children from experiencing a childhood. So I experience the breakdown of adult solidarity – but in the opposite direction of what the author describes. (That said, at least at present, I live in a nice lower class neighborhood where other parents are unlikely to judge me for letting my kids play in the street. It’s definitely a plus of NOT living in the suburbs! :-P)

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (May 2014)

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Generally, I would take advantage of a long weekend to get my Nightstand post up and ready to go with all the bells and whistles – but my brother and sister-in-law came down to visit Daniel and I for this particular weekend and I was much too busy spending time with them to do internet stuff.

So you’re getting the little list I put together before I returned the last batch of books to the library – without expanded comments or books read since then. But something is better than nothing, right?

This month, I read:

  • The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer
    An intriguing one as Heyer goes since the hero and heroine are married from the very beginning of the book. I’m enjoying working my way through my library’s collection of Heyer.
  • Ruth by Lori Copeland
    I only finished this because it was the only fiction I had out of the library. The heroine was an impulsive fool, the hero a “good man” who wasn’t a believer until the day before he married the heroine, the plot absolutely implausible. I didn’t like it at all. In fact, I’m considering just being done with Copeland – I’ve been either “meh” or “blech” on the last half dozen or so of hers that I’ve read.
  • Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
    This is the second book in the “Ender’s Game” series, and we own a copy of the first two in one volume. I loved Ender’s Game when I read it last year, and I started reading Speaker for the Dead immediately afterward – only to give up in desperation. The story was too different, the style too different. There were new characters that I didn’t know and love yet. I couldn’t do it. But when I ran out of fiction from the library this past month, I picked it up again – and absolutely loved it, devoured it. Whereas Ender’s Game is very action-packed, Speaker for the Dead is all about relationships and the inner workings of peoples’ brains. Card is a gifted writer, that’s for sure.
  • The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
    A re-read for our church-lady book club. I led the discusion and found it provoking all sorts of new thoughts in my own mind. Love it, love it, love it.
  • The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
    I read along with the Reading to Know Classic Book Club – and enjoyed this little Gothic tale immensely.
  • Yesterday’s Schools by Ruth Freeman
    An interesting look at the evolution of schoolhouses in America from the colonial days to the mid 20th century. The emphasis is on New York schools, as the author was apparently an educator there, but I could see resemblances to schoolhouses I’ve read described or seen in person elsewhere. It took me a while, with rather a lot of confusion to figure out that every eight pages or so was misplaced such that I had to skip a page to have a continuous paragraph and then go back to the previous page. Very odd. But I’m glad I read this itsy-bitsy little volume from my local library.
  • Paranoid Parenting by Frank Furedi
    I’m working on book notes for this one, but don’t know when they’ll be done. This was a great look at how parenting has turned into a can’t-win game – and children are losing out because of it. The subtitle is “why ignoring the experts may be best for your child” – and I agree completely, except when I’m the expert :-)
  • Betty Crocker’s Bread Machine Cookbook
    I might have only made one recipe from this book – the second one, for Buttermilk Bread. It was amazing. I made it a dozen times. I really need to get this book out again and make some more recipes to see if the rest are as good as that one.
  • The Gift of Health by Karin B. Michels and Kristine Napier
    Just another prenatal programming book. More interesting than the other two, more practical as well – but a bit too “diet-book” like for me, with two weeks worth of menus and recipes for each trimester. You have to go to the end of each chapter to see the food group recommendations that give you the option of creating your own menus within the nutritional guidelines the authors recommend.

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

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Last month’s read for the Reading to Know Classics Bookclub was My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, selected by Cassandra of Adventist Homemaker.

I’d already read everything my old local library had by Wodehouse (therefore closing him out in my “Read through the Library” challenge), so I wasn’t entirely certain if I’d be reading along here in April.

But when I looked through the list of what I had already read, I didn’t find My Man Jeeves within it – and it so happened that my new local library had an audio version (but not a printed copy.) Considering that the audio was only 4-6 hours long (I don’t remember how long exactly), I figured I might as well play along.

Once I started listening, my first thought was that I had heard this story before. Did I read it in the past and just not log it? I let the CD continue to play and paid it no more mind, listening as the stories became increasingly unfamiliar.

And yes, they are stories with an -ES. I expected this to be somewhat like the other Jeeves and Wooster tales I’ve read, quick-to-read novels with a defined story arc that carries through the entirety. This was not that.

Instead, My Man Jeeves is a collection of short stories about Jeeves and Wooster – and also about Reggie Pepper and his man. The stories were originally written for magazines and then compiled into this volume – and Reggie Pepper was an early incarnation of the man who would be Wooster, the not-so-smart-but-friendly chap who narrates the Jeeves books.

Each story follows a similar plot: Wooster (or Reggie) or one of his friends gets into some sort of scrape, often a love affair or a threat from a wealthy relative to cut off his allowance, which Jeeves (or Reggie’s man) helps extricate him from. Generally, things get worse before they get better, in a comedy of errors that Jeeves almost always anticipates.

But what makes these simple tales shine is Wodehouse’s characteristic wit. He writes in a down to earth style, full of slang (which is sometimes not that comprehensible since it’s from the 1910-1930s and possibly British in origin) but completely delightful. I never fail to laugh at Wodehouse’s descriptions and narratives.

Another delightful aspect of Wodehouse’s style, which appears liberally in My Man Jeeves is his attention to style – that is, to men’s clothing. In almost every one of Wooster’s escapades, Wooster happens upon an article of clothing (or sometimes a way of wearing his facial hair) which he considers all that but of which his dignified valet disapproves. When Jeeves expresses his opinion (always subtley, of course), Wooster bristles and tries to assert his authority – only to find that he’s now getting the cold shoulder. Jeeves still does his job, of course, but Wooster relies on him for much more, such that the cold shoulder is unbearable. Often, once a predicament is resolved through the brilliant ministrations of Jeeves, Wooster rewards him by discarding the offending article.

Listening to my review, I realize you could easily feel that Wodehouse is a tiresomely repetitive writer. And honestly, there is rather a lot of repetition in this particular volume. But, if you’d rather do short stories instead of a full novel, this is a good intro to Wodehouse. (I ended up enjoying the short stories because it meant I didn’t have to remember much of a plot line between ten minute segments of listening!) On the other hand, if you’re up for a little longer read (although still short compared to most novels), you might jump right in with some of the later books about Jeeves and Wooster. Carry on, Jeeves is a more fleshed out version of one of the early stories from My Man Jeeves (the reason it had seemed so familiar when I first started listening) – and that would be a good start for someone who’s wanting to try some Wodehouse.

I’m awfully glad, though, that I read (er, listened) along this month – and am grateful to Cassandra (and her late father-in-law) for suggesting the title. Check out what other readers are saying about Wodehouse at the Reading to Know Classics Bookclub round-up post.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Comedic short stories
Synopsis: Bertie Wooster (and his literary progenitor Reggie Pepper) gets into a series of scrapes from which his loyal manservant saves him.
Recommendation: If you’re looking for an introduction to Wodehouse that you can easily read in small chunks, check out this collection of short stories. Otherwise, you might as well go for one of Wodehouse’s excellent novels starring the same characters (well, Wooster and his man Jeeves, anyway.)

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (April 2014)

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It’s been a beautiful and busy month here in Wichita, what with setting out seedlings and preparing a Seder and getting close to the end of Daniel’s semester (one more month until he’s got his MBA!)

And I’m not even going to estimate how my reading has been compared to previous months. It is what it is.

This month, I read:

  • Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis with Beth Clark
    I read this with my church’s book club and was… disappointed. The writing is poor, the story told without soul. And the worst part of all was that Katie is a missionary, but I saw nothing in the book to suggest that Katie understands or shares the gospel (not that she doesn’t use the word the gospel…) I might review this in more depth later. Or I might not.
  • To Do List by Sasha Cagen
    A very fun look into the lives of dozens of people, all through the to-do lists they submitted to the author. Majorly interesting, mostly fun, occasionally crude. Let the reader be warned.
  • Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer
    Yes, I like Heyer. This one had very little romance but plenty of little laughs. Perfect.
  • Catalog Living at its most absurd by Molly Erdman
    The author pokes fun at stock photographs by writing blurbs by a fictional couple to go along with the photos. A great light read with lots of laughs-out-loud.
  • The Prenatal Prescription by P.W. Nathanielsz
    A dry but not awful look at the science behind prenatal programming. A terrible prenatal program (not because the science wasn’t sound but because the author didn’t communicate clear ways to implement the science into real life). I guess you’ll just have to wait until I write my own prenatal nutrition program :-P
  • One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
    I finally finished this one and reviewed it. It was beautiful and frustrating. I can’t summarize it better than in my review, so you might have to check that out.
  • My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
    I listened to this one (my library only had an audio version) in conjunction with this month’s Reading to Know Classics Bookclub. As usual, Wodehouse is a delight. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was a collection of short stories (not all including Jeeves and Wooster). It was nice not to have to keep track of a long story line since I was listening in the car and rarely drive for more than ten minutes at a time.

In Progress:

  • I got pregnant, you can too! by Katie Boland
    Because I’m reading the library and figured I might as well do more of the preconception books (since I’ve already read several). I will *not* be recommending this one. The author’s life is a soap opera and it’s only going to get worse. I’m considering just calling it done, even though I haven’t yet gotten to where she meets her spirit guide. Yep. Blech!
  • Paranoid Parenting: Why ignoring the experts may be best for your child by Frank Furedi
    Just started this last night, but I’m already liking it. At the same time, I’m wondering if I won’t have some issues if he starts talking nutrition. I’m fine with ignoring the experts until you start ignoring me.
  • The Gift of Health : the complete pregnancy diet for your baby’s wellness by Karin Michels
    I think this is the last book my library has on prenatal programming, for which I am glad. All the books I’ve read on it so far were published around the same time period (2003) and review the same information. Some are better written than others, but it’s still all review. This one might be the best so far, but I’m not sure I’d recommend even it.
  • The Atonement: It’s meaning and significance by Leon Morris
    Lisa wrote about this book on her last month’s nightstand and I picked it up right away. I’m moving slowly, but this is a great look at what God accomplished in salvation.
  • The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
    I’ve already read and reviewed this book – but I’m rereading because I’ll be leading a discussion on it for my church’s book club next month! Yay! I love this book and am just speeding through it.
  • Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan
    My little brother read this in his high school economics class and really liked it. And I’m reading the economics section at my library, so I picked it up. A couple chapters in, it’s a very readable and enjoyable intro to economic principles (without the math).

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?