Parents Under the Influence

October 15, 2019
How to avoid making the same mistakes as your parents. When many of us become parents, we vow to raise our children differently than we were raised. Far too often, however, we fall back on automatic responses to our children that actually correlate to how we were raised, whether it's a positive or negative response. David-Weill (The Suitors, 2013, etc.) takes a close look at how our unconscious actions, what we might call parental instincts, are actually reproductions of our own parents' behavior and how we must consciously regulate and evaluate our reactions if we truly seek to take a different approach to parenting. Throughout the text, the author includes numerous examples to illustrate the wide range of ways we follow what we learned as children, whether it's choosing a bedtime, deciding what foods to serve, or disciplining rambunctious children in the back seat of a car. She also addresses more intriguing topics, such as why we can resent having to raise our children, the amount of time we should devote to our children so they ultimately gain independence, and how squabbling over minor issues can be a way to hide from larger, more urgent issues--depression, drug use, etc. At the end of the book, a comprehensive "Practical Guide" provides parents with advice on the do's and don'ts they can follow so they don't become their parents as well as a series of questions that evaluate the type of parent they really are. Much of what David-Weill discusses is straightforward and common sense, but having it compiled into a logically progressive text that identifies the key ways we mimic our parents and then provides helpful ways to work around these issues makes this book a worthy read for parents of children of all ages. Easy-to-assimilate lessons on creating a healthy and respectful relationship with your child.

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November 15, 2019
French American novelist David-Weill presents a chatty child-rearing narrative that focuses heavily on the baggage parents bring to the relationship. Billed as part memoir and part guide, it is more akin to a play-group discussion led by a parent who provides advice by drawing on a seemingly endless pool of friends, neighbors, and associates who have made poor parenting decisions. (i.e., Take Angela, a forty-five-year-old mother who humiliated her twelve-year-old daughter Cassie at a restaurant. ) David-Weill uses these examples to illustrate her broader message that parents must consider how they have been warped by their own upbringing. Altogether, the numerous cautionary tales provide the primary support for her thesis that parenting mistakes are repeated through unresolved frustrations that date back generations and recognizing this cycle of unresolved emotions can improve the lives of parents and children. Based on the broadly presented examples (there are no interviews on the short source material list), this is a breezy yet thought-provoking look at family life and unintentional legacies.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)