Review: I grew up watching the Cosby Show with my family and loved it. I saw this book on my in-law’s shelf and thought it would be a fun read. It was fun, at times. I learned that I shouldn’t read this book while I was sitting next to my son in bed as he went to sleep, because I would occasionally shake the bed from quiet laughing. Not exactly conducive to the relaxing bedtime atmosphere I was trying to create.

Like Cosby’s stand-up routines, parts of this book were really funny, especially if you pictured Bill Cosby himself delivering the lines. However, overall, this is not a book I would really recommend to someone. While it made me laugh at parts, in my opinion the overall tone was somewhat depressing, as much of the humor came from his learning to accept disappointment.

He seemed greatly disappointed and overly-critical of his son in particular. While I appreciate other parents sharing their embarrassing parenting stories with me and love to commiserate, I feel like generally it still comes across that, above all, we deeply love our children. My kids are young, so maybe I’m just naïve and not jaded enough by parenthood yet, but overall this left me feeling a little sad. I certainly hope this isn’t an accurate depiction of the emotions that come with fatherhood. (Personal Rating: 6/10)

Related Links:

Parenting Book Reviews
Humorous Parenting Books
Biographical Parenting Books

The post Fatherhood appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Review: I never watched the show, Mad About You. If Paul Reiser has been in movies, I’ve never seen them. However, his face does look vaguely familiar. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, but I really enjoyed it. Paul Reiser seems like a genuinely nice guy. While much of what he writes is funny (some of it even laugh-out-loud so), even better is that what he writes is true.

I feel like he’s accurately captured the full range of emotions of first-time parenthood in a way I haven’t read before. Unlike what I would expect in a book by a celebrity and comedian, his words are full of sincerity. The only reason why I didn’t like this book more is that it is not particularly useful or informative, so reading it seemed more like a guilty pleasure than a productive use of time.

I think it would make an excellent gift for someone pregnant with her second (or third, fourth, etc…) child who already knows all the important stuff and would enjoy being reminded of what she’s about to relive in a pleasant and humorous way. (Personal Rating: 8/10)

Related Links:

Parenting Book Reviews
Humorous Parenting Books
Biographical Parenting Books

The post Babyhood appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Review: I’ve read this book twice. Once while I was pregnant with my second child and once while my kids were one and three. Both times I thought, “That was a pretty good book, but I’ll probably never read it again.” The author is not trying to be helpful in general and doesn’t have a ton of useful advice. What she does is write about her life in a very friendly, appealing, relatable way.

I read some reviews of this book that made it sound like this book would scare anyone off who was thinking of having a second child. I didn’t get that impression at all, either time I read it. I got the overall sense that she was extremely happy with her decision to have two kids, and while her life was busy and hectic, she considered herself to be pretty lucky.

The one main difference between my first reading and second reading was my interpretation of the way she and her husband decided to handle their kids. She had worked out an arrangement with her husband where they would each take both kids on outings so the other parent would have alone time. While pregnant, I thought that it was more important that each child have alone time with a parent and that my husband and I would spend a lot of time each dealing one-on-one with a kid when we were both available and the rest of the time we would do things as a family.

Now that I have two kids, I fully appreciate the deal she and her husband made and while we still do things all together and individually with our kids, we have developed the same pattern of taking turns much of the time. What surprised me that I should have expected based on reading her book was how much the kids would prefer playing together (in general, definitely not always). (Personal Rating: 7/10)

Related Links:

Parenting Book Reviews
Parenting Books on Siblings

The post Beyond One: Growing a Family and Getting a Life appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Review: I read this book immediately after reading the French parenting Book, Bringing Up Bebe. The differences are striking. While the French learning philosophy is all about giving children opportunities for awakening and discovery with no real forced learning, the Chinese philosophy is the exact opposite. Even from toddlerhood, kids are expected to spend practically every waking minute in structured education of some form or another with no real choice in the matter.

I know this book was heavily criticized when it came out, and although I’m more in favor of the French teaching philosophy, I actually really enjoyed the book. The main idea is that, in general, kids will not push themselves to do something difficult, because no one likes working hard. By not giving their children a choice, Chinese mothers do their children a favor, because they acquire skills and talents they would not otherwise have if left to decide for themselves.

As they master different skills, they receive praise and then the parent, in theory, should no longer have to force them to work hard. While the author is admittedly an extremist when it comes to applying this principle, the idea is interesting. They may not like their parents when they are young and may hate being forced to work harder than their friends, but after many successes the children are in general grateful to their parents and maintain a lifelong relationship with them.

While the Chinese parenting philosophy “works” beautifully on the older of the author’s daughters, it backfires on the younger daughter who becomes rebellious as a preteen and early teenager despite all her mother’s efforts. After one final incident, the mother wisely decides to give in rather than ultimately sacrifice her relationship with her daughter and lets the daughter decide her life for herself. The end result is that she has two happy, hard working, talented children who seem to have a sincerely strong, though somewhat atypical, relationship with their mother.

While I know I could never be a Chinese mother, this book is a good reminder that as parents, we know better than our children, and it is okay if they don’t like us for awhile when we do what we believe is in their long term best interest. However, it also teaches us that ultimately, we can’t control our children and they will either obey or rebel of their own volition.
(Personal Rating: 8/10)

Related Links:

Parenting Book Reviews
Biographical Parenting Books

The post Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother appeared first on ResearchParent.com.