The only effective way to help well-intentioned, intelligent persons to do the best they can in raising children is to encourage a...nd guide them always to do their own thinking in their attempts at understanding and dealing with child-rearing situations and problems, and not to rely blindly on the opinions of others.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most advice on child-rearing is sought in the hope that it will confirm our prior convictions. If the parent had wished to proceed... in a certain way but was made insecure by opposing opinions of neighbors, friends, or relatives, then it gives him great comfort to find his ideas seconded by an expert.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I'd rea...d, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers--especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our basic ideas about how to parent are encrusted with deeply felt emotions and many myths. One of the myths of parenting is that ...it is always fun and games, joy and delight. Everyone who has been a parent will testify that it is also anxiety, strife, frustration, and even hostility. Thus most major parenting- education formats deal with parental emotions and attitudes and, to a greater or lesser extent, advocate that the emotional component is more important than the knowledge.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really... knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck--and, of course, courage.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The childless experts on child raising also bring tears of laughter to my eyes when they say, "I love children because they're so ...honest." There is not an agent in the CIA or the KGB who knows how to conceal the theft of food, how to fake being asleep, or how to forge a parent's signature like a child.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The cohort that made up the population boom is now grown up; many are in fact middle- aged. They are one reason for the enormous c...urrent interest in such topics as child rearing and families. The articulate and highly educated children of the baby boom form a huge, literate market for books on various issues in parenting and child rearing, and, as time goes on, adult development, divorce, midlife crisis, old age, and of course, death.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The belief that there are final and immutable answers, and that the professional expert has them, is one that mothers and professi...onals tend to reinforce in each other. They both have a need to believe it. They both seem to agree, too, that if the professional's prescription doesn't work it is probably because of the mother's inadequacy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mothers and others who work with children each have their own special expertise; each has something to contribute to a child's wel...l-being. The opinion of each needs to be respected. Together they can work more effectively on behalf of the child. It is not that one is right, the other wrong, that one is good, the other bad. There are no certain answers and all the information available is needed. It is time to stop looking for a villain--and it is certainly time to stop casting mothers in that role.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »