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Parents We Mean To Be (2009)

by Richard Weissbourd(Favorite Author)

3.56 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1299896723 (ISBN13: 9781299896727)

languge

English

genre

Middle Grade & Children's

publisher

Mariner Books

review 1: Weissbound is a Harvard child and family psychologist and presents a thought-provoking look at the very moral act of parenting. Part of the book made me feel totally overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a parent and how our decisions have such moral ramifications, and part of it was really inspiring to think how we can have some really positive impact on the future generation. I appreciated that Weissbound was very thoughtful and grounded in his perspective and his writing. He's not preaching nor guilt-inducing but reflective. It's very readable but not a page-turner.
review 2: I found a great deal of what Weissbourd writes about to be simple common sense, but his emphasis on morality as a lifelong work-in-progress (as opposed to a stagnant goal we au... moretomatically achieve when we hit a certain age as adults) and the higher value of examples we set (over simple lectures that don't carry half as much weight with our children) did cause me to rethink a lot of the actions I take with my children and had me questioning what messages I've really been sending them. It's true, as Weissbourd points out, that we Americans place so much stress on achievement and success that it undermines what we try to impart to our children about giving and supporting others. I think it's that sort of attitude that created that smug speech by Rudy Giuliani at the 2008 Republican national convention, in which he basically derided Barack Obama's background of community service as an unimportant and irrelevant experience in preparation for public office. Public service is not good preparation for...public service? Because politics is seen through a lens of power and prestige, all too often the idea that one is supposed to be serving the public is lost. Individual achievement is so revered, and the desire of it so ingrained, into the national psyche that it permeates at every level and informs too much of our parenting approaches. We push for our kids to excel often at the expense of everything else, including our responsibility to the other children in our communities. Weissbourd's book is an attempt to remove the blinders from American parents and make us more aware of the long-term effects of the individualistic mindset that controls far too much of our child-rearing practices. less

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