A fresh, eye-opening reexamination of the father’s role in the family, full of stimulating contrarian insights.
Nielsen argues that fathers are just as competent, devoted, and central to kids’ well-being as mothers in this nonfiction work.
The author, a psychology professor at Wake Forest University, takes aim at the conventional wisdom that considers mothers the mainstays of child rearing and relegates fathers to a supporting role as breadwinners and child care assistants who can be dispensed with after a divorce. On the contrary, she asserts that dads are essential, stating that kids raised with their father in the home are healthier and better adjusted, have higher graduation rates, and are less prone to delinquency, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, depression, and anxiety. Fathers’ hands-on parenting is just as important as the income they provide, Nielsen contends. The author further reports that babies and toddlers with attentive dads sleep better and receive cognitive benefits from a father’s tendency to engage in play that’s more stimulating and challenging and that fathers provide reality checks that hold kids accountable and teach them to overcome problems and cope with frustration and failure. She offers proposals for shoring up fathers’ positions, including increased paid paternity leave, 50-50 shared custody arrangements, and a plea for wary moms to embrace a more integral parenting role for dads. The author cites a wealth of sociological statistics and scientific studies but also probes the cultural conventions we apply to fatherhood, exploring everything from the caricature of uncommunicative, emotionally clueless husbands in pop-psychology tomes like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus to the parade of incompetent, absentee, and deadbeat dads in movies. She writes in a lucid, down-to-earth style that’s free of academic cant and replete with tart wisdom (“The main reason most husbands do less of the work in and around the home is the same reason they don’t get to spend as much time with the children as their wives: their jobs….[T]hat doesn’t justify villainizing men as lazy bums who do nothing more than lift their legs off the floor so their wives can vacuum”). Dads and moms alike will find much to ponder here.
A fresh, eye-opening reexamination of the father’s role in the family, full of stimulating contrarian insights.Pub Date: March 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781032348254
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Routledge
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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