The September 2014 Book is Not About a Lot of Things

My husband is a TED talk devotee.  I try to remember TED even exists.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Technology, Entertainment and Design is an amazing resource.  I just rely on my husband to funnel the most intriguing talks my way.  One evening, he was insistent we watch one in particular that featured writer Jennifer Senior.  She opened her lecture with how the parenting section in a chain bookstore is overwhelmingly stocked with volumes on how to raise the “right” kid and the crisis these overladen shelves symbolize.

By the way, Jennifer Senior has published a book.

But it isn’t about parenting (a term, she states, only came into regular use in 1970) and how mothers and fathers can affect and mold their offspring; its premise is exactly the opposite.  All Joy and No Fun:  The Paradox of Modern Parenthood is about how children affect their parents.  Along the way, Ms. Senior talks with parents-in-the-trenches who are at all stages in the parenting game.  She utilizes a multitude of disciplines to explain the anxiety contemporary humans have over what people have been doing for centuries…raising children.  How the author brings sociology, economics and psychology into one 265-page volume on parenthood is certainly intriguing.

And definitely check out Jennifer Senior’s TED talk on TED.com…she is a wonderful, wryly humorous orator:  “For parents, happiness is a very high bar.”