Act Natural

October 15, 2018
Traig (Devil in the Details) explores parenting throughout the ages in this alternately hilarious and disturbing historical survey. A mother of two, Traig emphasizes how difficult parenting is in any era, observing that “to do even a half-assed job is a Sisyphean task.” Though the topics explored in different chapters—childbirth, feeding, sibling conflict, sleep, and children’s literature—are familiar, this is no ordinary childcare book. Traig finds a wealth of shocking “historical horrors”; in ancient Rome, for instance, parents often “exposed,” or abandoned, their unwanted offspring, and in later times sent them to “foundling homes,” which almost invariably proved fatal (infanticide and abandonment, Traig writes, functioned, in an era before safe and reliable birth control, as crude forms of “early family planning”). Alongside such ghoulish details, Traig finds amusingly offbeat ones, such as bizarre names bestowed by Puritan parents on their children for purposes of moral instruction (these include Kill Sin, Fly-Fornication, and Faint-Not). Throughout, Traig exhibits a sardonic wit, as when noting the historical curiosity that many early gynecological texts were written by monks, “who presumably knew less about female reproductive anatomy than anyone on the planet.” This information-rich history lesson is so entertaining it may keep parents up reading well past their bedtimes.

Narrator Emily Woo Zeller delivers this captivating history of how civilizations across the world raise children. Zeller captures the author's humor and irony without overshadowing her mission: to give fretting parents a reprieve from overly ambitious parenting advice. Her understated, often charming performance will hold listeners' attention, giving them time to absorb the colorful stories and insights Jennifer Traig has compiled. This audiobook delivers the weight of its views indirectly over many hours, rather than being too explicit. Zeller's skillful unfolding and the author's natural sense of irony make this an entertaining and memorable lesson for parents who are being driven crazy by unrealistic expectations of themselves. T.W. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

February 1, 2019

From the Puritans to Dr. Spock to the Skinner air crib, we've come up with some bizarre ideas about raising children. Tracing methods both amusing and terrifying, Traig (Devil in the Details; Well Enough Alone) explores the strange side of parenting (a term originating in the 1970s; before that, children were reared). Here, helicopter parenting stands in stark contrast to the horrors of infant abandonment and children adopted as pets (a popular advice manual once suggested dipping baby in salt). Traig further chronicles childbirth (modern readers will sigh with relief for antibacterial soap), the toddler years (scurvy resulting in red gums was often mistaken for teething in 19th-century London), techniques for sleeping and feeding and more. Chapters on children's books and lullabies will put the Brothers Grimm fairy tales to shame. VERDICT This fun, if at times unsettling, cultural history proves an amusing glance back at parenting through the ages, though occasionally the author's opinions stand in the way of presenting history "as is."

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