All Joy and No Fun

My book choice was All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior.

It was an interesting and thought-provoking look at how parenting has changed.  She quotes Viviana Zelizer: "The twentieth-century economically useless but emotionally priceless child displaced the nineteenth century useful child."

It used to be parents were in charge of making their children's clothes, growing their food, educating them, etc.  We have now outsourced much of this.  What's left for us to do?  Be in charge of their emotional state and their self esteem.

This book talks a lot about the effect of children on parents, a different take than most child-rearing books.

I asked the author a question via Twitter:

@JenSeniorNY Enjoyed your book. Did researching/writing it change your parenting in any concrete ways? (Discussing at my book club Sat.)

— Cathy Pearl (@cpearl42) May 21, 2014

And she quickly responded:

@cpearl42 I've tried to optimize my remembering self. I take WAY more pix now. And write down more funny stuff my kid says. Thx for reading!

— Jennifer Senior (@JenSeniorNY) May 21, 2014

We had book club at my house, and I was so happy that everyone could make it!

Quote of the day, from Rebecca: "I'm convinced there are only wrong ways to parent."  It should also be noted we learned during book club that Rebecca once worked at an emu and hedgehog auction in Texas, writing down the sale price.  So there you go.