"The Parent Trap Columns, Volume 1, is the first in a two-volume collection of humorous and insightful observations on contemporary teen parenting by Michael A. Battey, an East Greenwich, Rhode Island based doctor. Published in community newspapers within Rhode Island over several years, the columns reflect the author's personal experience along with commentary on parenting trends, and public education." --
How parents have been set up to fail, and why helping them succeed is the key to achieving a fair and prosperous society. Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, and its primary workers—parents—labor in isolation. If they ask for help, they are made to feel inadequate; there is no centralized organization to represent their interests; and there is virtually nothing spent on research and development to help them achieve their goals. It’s almost as if parents are set up to fail—and the result is lost opportunities that limit children’s success and make us all worse off. In The Parent Trap, Nate Hilger combines cutting-edge social science research, revealing historical case studies, and on-the-ground investigation to recast parenting as the hidden crucible of inequality. Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today’s socioeconomic reality—but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff. We need a program like Medicare—call it Familycare—to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents need to organize to wield their political power on behalf of children—who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country. The Parent Trap exposes the true costs of our society’s unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a profoundly hopeful blueprint for reform.
"The Parent Trap Columns, Volume 1, is the first in a two-volume collection of humorous and insightful observations on contemporary teen parenting by Michael A. Battey, an East Greenwich, Rhode Island based doctor. Published in community newspapers within Rhode Island over several years, the columns reflect the author's personal experience along with commentary on parenting trends, and public education." --
How parents have been set up to fail, and why helping them succeed is the key to achieving a fair and prosperous society. A next Big Idea Club nominee. Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, and its primary workers—parents—labor in isolation. If they ask for help, they are made to feel inadequate; there is no centralized organization to represent their interests; and there is virtually nothing spent on research and development to help them achieve their goals. It’s almost as if parents are set up to fail—and the result is lost opportunities that limit children’s success and make us all worse off. In The Parent Trap, Nate Hilger combines cutting-edge social science research, revealing historical case studies, and on-the-ground investigation to recast parenting as the hidden crucible of inequality. Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today’s socioeconomic reality—but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff. We need a program like Medicare—call it Familycare—to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents need to organize to wield their political power on behalf of children—who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country. The Parent Trap exposes the true costs of our society’s unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a profoundly hopeful blueprint for reform.
A detailed account of how gender is learned and unlearned in the home From the selection of toys, clothes, and activities to styles of play and emotional expression, the family is ground zero for where children learn about gender. Despite recent awareness that girls are not too fragile to play sports and that boys can benefit from learning to cook, we still find ourselves surrounded by limited gender expectations and persistent gender inequalities. Through the lively and engaging stories of parents from a wide range of backgrounds, The Gender Trap provides a detailed account of how today’s parents understand, enforce, and resist the gendering of their children. Emily Kane shows how most parents make efforts to loosen gendered constraints for their children, while also engaging in a variety of behaviors that reproduce traditionally gendered childhoods, ultimately arguing that conventional gender expectations are deeply entrenched and that there is great tension in attempting to undo them while letting 'boys be boys' and 'girls be girls.'
“An invaluable guide.” Noel Whittaker, International bestselling author and finance writer “Informative, inspiring, insightful … this is the essential family guide to navigating elder care and preparing for ageing parents.’’ Winner of the 2021 Australasian Journal on Ageing (AJA) Book Award. Informative and insightful, this is the essential family guide to preparing for ageing parents. This is a book that forces us to confront what most of us avoid - planning for our ageing parents. Our natural inclination is to wait and see what might happen. But when it does happen or starts to unfold, most families are unprepared, and the results can be devastating. Poor decisions, disputes with siblings and partners and the destruction of relationships can be the aftermath. Author Brian Herd should know, recognised as one of Australia’s leading experts in the areas of elder law, and aged care for over 35 years, he has dealt with the fallout from these failures in families. Avoiding the Ageing Parent Trap is packed full of practical strategies for dealing with family dynamics and managing financial and legal affairs, the overriding goal, is to forewarn and forearm you about your family’s future. This book is your go-to resource for: • Information and practical case studies to support families in their legal, financial, and healthcare decision-making. • Easy to read and commonsense advice from a leading elder care lawyer, with hands-on experience and examples to demonstrate what to expect, and even better, how to plan and prepare. • Help navigating the best outcomes for aging parents, from estate planning to Centrelink, residential aged care, wills, and financial pitfalls to avoid. Brian outlines practical strategies for dealing with family dynamics and avoiding the pitfalls. He recounts numerous hair-raising examples of bad ‘family planning’ and even better, what to expect, and how to plan and prepare.
How parenting became a verb, from Dr. Spock and June Cleaver to baby whispering and free-range kids. When did “parenting” become a verb? Why is it so hard to parent, and so rife with the possibility of failure? Sitcom families of the past—the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Conners—didn’t seem to lose any sleep about their parenting methods. Today, parents are likely to be up late, doomscrolling on parenting websites. In Long Days, Short Years, Andrew Bomback—physician, writer, and father of three young children—looks at why it can be so much fun to be a parent but, at the same time, so frustrating and difficult to parent. It’s not a “how to” book (although Bomback has read plenty of these) but a “how come” book, investigating the emergence of an immersive, all-in approach to raising children that has made parenting a competitive (and often not very enjoyable) sport. Drawing on parenting books, mommy blogs, and historical accounts of parental duties as well as novels, films, podcasts, television shows, and his own experiences as a parent, Bomback charts the cultural history of parenting as a skill to be mastered, from the laid-back Dr. Spock’s 1950s childcare bible—in some years outsold only by the actual Bible—to the more rigid training schedules of Babywise. Along the way, he considers the high costs of commercialized parenting (from the babymoon on), the pressure on mothers to have it all (and do it all), scripted parenting as laid out in How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, parenting during a pandemic, and much more.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Senator Elizabeth Warren and consultant Amelia Warren Tyagi, the classic book about America's middle class -- and why economic security remains out of reach for many. In this exposé, Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi show that modern middle-class families are increasingly trapped by the grinding reality of flat wages and rising costs. Warren and Tyagi reveal how a ferocious bidding war for housing and education has silently engulfed America's suburbs, driving up the cost of keeping families in the middle class, and placing unprecedented pressure on hard-working families. Revolutionary when it was first published in 2003, The Two-Income Trap remains disturbingly relevant today. Now with a new introduction by the authors, The Two Income Trap shows why the usual remedies won't solve the problem and points toward the policy changes that would create better opportunities for both parents and children.
