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Loading... All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood (original 2014; edition 2014)by Jennifer Senior
Work InformationAll Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior (2014)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I don't know who the audience of "All Joy and No Fun" is supposed to be, but it's certainly not me. I kept stopping the book, re-reading passages aloud to my partner, and then we'd both giggle and say, "Who are these people?" Here is what I learned: A. Being a parent means that you are not the protagonist in your own story anymore, and if you're not ok with that, then parenting is going to be rough on you. (Technically I didn't really "learn" that, since we'd already thought it through and discussed it ad nauseum before we decided to become parents.) B. If there are cracks in your relationship about communication and/or division of labor, then babies will make it worse. So get your act together before procreating. Also, having one parent stay at home seems to exacerbate the situation. Unless you are independently wealthy, one stay-at-home parent is a recipe for divorce. Get thee back to work. C. Lots of middle class white families need to chill the f out already. I felt so super smug after reading this book. It's good to feel smug. This book is a must-read. Senior writes with a wisdom and sensibility well beyond her years. The book is deeply researched, insightful, engrossing. I finished it feeling smarter than when I started it and certainly less alone in my own experience of parenting in this moment of time in which 'all joy and no fun' aptly captures the parenting experience for highly educated, middle class, working parents. Yes, yes, YES. Senior offers a wonderful exploration of parenthood in the modern age. I was fascinated to read the science and statistics behind many things that I already inherently knew to be true. Also, the vignettes of other parents and their children were very touching. Reading All Joy I recognized many of my own experiences reflected on the pages. Unique take on a parenting book in that it examines the effect children have on parents rather than vice-versa. Jennifer Senior has presented a well-written, well-researched book that is informative and engaging. She provides multiple answers to the seemingly simple question of why parenthood is so difficult -- and why we even spend energy mulling it over. The evolution of childhood over the last century is fascinating and the ways parenting has changed over the last few decades is startling. (e.g. "Parent" didn't even appear as a verb until 1970 -- it has become something we actively do vs. a role or a description) Senior also noted that although Dads are more involved now than at any time inn history, it is still mothers who bear the brunt of the daily grind and the majority of the nagging duties (homework, chores, behavior, etc.) Despite the venting and negative outlooks of some of the research subjects, the book never gets mired in whining, but instead has the uplifting message of joy being at the heart of raising a family, albeit buried under the drudgery of day-to-day tasks. This would make a great gift for new parents or parents-to-be (assuming they'd have time to read it! :)
Senior’s book explores the effects of children on parents—particularly, based on the bulk of her interviews and research, mothers. [...] Senior ... turns childrearing literature on its head by writing about the role children play in their parents’ lives. [...] Senior emphasizes that delayed child-bearing and family planning mean that today’s parents can focus on their children in ways they didn’t, and couldn’t, before. DistinctionsNotable Lists
Thousands of books have examined the effects of parents on their children. But almost none have thought to ask: What are the effects of children on their parents? In All Joy and No Fun, award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior tries to tackle this question, isolating and analyzing the many ways in which children reshape their parents' lives, whether it's their marriages, their jobs, their habits, their hobbies, their friendships, or their internal senses of self. She argues that changes in the last half century have radically altered the roles of today's mothers and fathers, making their mandates at once more complex and far less clear. Recruiting from a wide variety of sources-in history, sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology-she dissects both the timeless strains of parenting and the ones that are brand new, and then brings her research to life in the homes of ordinary parents around the country. The result is an unforgettable series of family portraits, starting with parents of young children and progressing to parents of teens. Through lively and accessible storytelling, Senior follows these mothers and fathers as they wrestle with some of parenthood's deepest vexations-and luxuriate in some of its fi nest rewards. Meticulously researched yet imbued with emotional intelligence, All Joy and No Fun makes us reconsider some of our culture's most basic beliefs about parenthood, all while illuminating the profound ways children deepen and add purpose to our lives. By focusing on parenthood, rather than parenting, the book is original and essential reading for mothers and fathers of today-and tomorrow. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)306.874Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Culture and Institutions Marriage and Parenting Parenting Experiences of Family CaregiversLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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While this book did a great job of capturing the feelings of parenthood, of putting into words feelings that are familiar to me even after less than a year of being a parent, in the end, it was more a memoir of the experience of being a parent than an analysis of modern parenthood (a well researched memoir, to be fair). For many people, that probably hits just the point that they are looking for, but my preference in general is for books to dive a little more deeply into the whys and therefores than this one did. ( )