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How to Be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together
In this "refreshingly relatable" (Outside) memoir, perfect for the self-isolating family, Slate editor Dan Kois sets out with his family on a journey around the world to change their lives together.
What happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids' lives upside down in search of a new way to be a family?
Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their children's time wisely, and when they weren't arguing over screen time, the Kois family-Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen daughters-could each be found searching for their own happiness. But aren't families supposed to achieve happiness together?
In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois' go in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home-but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble.
HOW TO BE A FAMILY brings readers along as the Kois girls-witty, solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly Harper-like through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them wherever we go?
A journalistic memoir filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining, HOW TO BE A FAMILY will make readers dream about the amazing adventures their own families might take.
What happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids' lives upside down in search of a new way to be a family?
Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their children's time wisely, and when they weren't arguing over screen time, the Kois family-Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen daughters-could each be found searching for their own happiness. But aren't families supposed to achieve happiness together?
In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois' go in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home-but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble.
HOW TO BE A FAMILY brings readers along as the Kois girls-witty, solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly Harper-like through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them wherever we go?
A journalistic memoir filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining, HOW TO BE A FAMILY will make readers dream about the amazing adventures their own families might take.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 17, 2019
116 people are currently reading
4952 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 293 reviews
September 30, 2019
I probably should have quit this book 1/2 way through. But I didn't. I wanted to get to Kansas- that's why.
Honestly I don't think I have ever read a memoir or travelogue of such wordiness verbosity smugness. And this man thinks he is "kind". LOL! It's beyond belief that they used the word "refreshing" to describe in the trailer.
The places they lived for each 3 month period were more interesting than the writer. That's for sure. And his wife and girls? Well, there's too much arrogant, elitist Dan think overview to really fully understand any of their deepest or varied opinions/ positions. And generally few insights or anything essential. Except perhaps occasionally minutia tidbits which occurred from general reflections of the topics he inquired (or choose for them like the God belief one)- for them to "answer".
The next time I come across any non-fiction with the types of condescending commentary to or about fellow Americans that appeared in the first few chapters of this one, I won't continue. Because the read isn't worth it. He didn't learn much either for his "widening" year, because he was just as insufferable in his commentary about "other" at the end as he was at the beginning.
Honestly I don't think I have ever read a memoir or travelogue of such wordiness verbosity smugness. And this man thinks he is "kind". LOL! It's beyond belief that they used the word "refreshing" to describe in the trailer.
The places they lived for each 3 month period were more interesting than the writer. That's for sure. And his wife and girls? Well, there's too much arrogant, elitist Dan think overview to really fully understand any of their deepest or varied opinions/ positions. And generally few insights or anything essential. Except perhaps occasionally minutia tidbits which occurred from general reflections of the topics he inquired (or choose for them like the God belief one)- for them to "answer".
The next time I come across any non-fiction with the types of condescending commentary to or about fellow Americans that appeared in the first few chapters of this one, I won't continue. Because the read isn't worth it. He didn't learn much either for his "widening" year, because he was just as insufferable in his commentary about "other" at the end as he was at the beginning.
January 3, 2020
The amount of complaining Kois did about his teenage daughter doing incredibly normal teenage things was enormously off-putting, especially when compared to how much he raved about his younger daughter's behavior during the trip. Kois stated he wanted to take this trip to find new and better ways to parent his children, but he clearly wanted his daughters to change so he wouldn't have to. The more I read, the more disgusted I became with him.
June 10, 2019
I really enjoyed this book, and clearly am the exact right demographic to appreciate it--we're about 8 years behind Kois's family, but we too are an editor and an attorney who moved to the DC suburbs with a kid, few friends, and too little time. So I can definitely get where he's coming from. I loved the author's sense of humor and the glimpses of parenting styles abroad. I also appreciated the extent to which he resisted packaging everything into a neat arc, where he went on this journey and learned things and was forever changed/improved by it. That's rarely how life works, and that's not how it works here. My biggest takeaway from the book is how much better and more fun parenting is when you have a community around you--something we're currently sorely lacking, as are lots of parents. In any case, an excellent read for parents and anyone else interested in the messy process of raising kids, here or anywhere.
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April 22, 2021More like 4 stars, but giving an extra star to combat those leaving 1 star reviews because Kois dares to question whether or not America is the best place to raise a family.
October 1, 2019
BUYER BEWARE!
The title is deceiving! I was only 11% into the book, when I realized this was more about the author's political agenda. It's just more Trump bashing and US shaming. If you don't get enough of that from the news media, then maybe you would enjoy the book. The end game for me was when the author writes about their move to New Zealand, and how his 11 year old daughter upon meeting new people, starts out every conversation with "Sorry about Trump." (Page 37). That was enough for me, I hit the delete button.
The title is deceiving! I was only 11% into the book, when I realized this was more about the author's political agenda. It's just more Trump bashing and US shaming. If you don't get enough of that from the news media, then maybe you would enjoy the book. The end game for me was when the author writes about their move to New Zealand, and how his 11 year old daughter upon meeting new people, starts out every conversation with "Sorry about Trump." (Page 37). That was enough for me, I hit the delete button.
November 13, 2019
‘How To Be A Family’ is the story of a middle class professional (the author) and his wife Alia (less about her later) also a middle class professional, who tire of the white middle class professional rat race in suburban Washington D.C. so decide to travel for a year spending four months in Wellington, New Zealand, four months in the Amsterdam area in the Netherlands, four months in a small beach-tourist town in northwest Costa Rica, and four months in heartland U.S.A. - Hays, Kansas. The children are Lyra, 12, and Harper, 10. The book is purportedly about family life and an attempt to improve the family’s interactions primarily by spending forced time together in unfamiliar places. The book spends an equal amount of time providing ‘insights’ about the four locales so you can also view it as an (unsuccessful) travelogue.
Ten year old Harper is always making friends, enjoys and interacts with her surroundings, and is generally a delightful child. Twelve year old Lyra is proudly and determinedly none of these things. Harper is a real person and no doubt terrific. But her portrait by her father, the author, is one dimensional and hence not very interesting. Perhaps all happy children are the same and it is not worth exploring their psyche and how the different cultures impact them. Lyra is the squeaky wheel and gets all the author’s ink. But that’s okay because she is the most interesting member of the family. Lyra likes to read and write and spend time on the internet. She is oppositional to her father. Just like at home, the author’s efforts to get Lyra outside the house and interact with others is largely unsuccessful. (Perhaps her mother, Alia, has a different take but she is largely invisible in this book. We don’t know her thoughts about anything including how she and her husband get along on this year of discovery. Maybe she didn’t give the author permission to disclose her thoughts).
Lyra’s schtick is to not like anything - especially whatever it is the rest of the family likes and wants to do. Lyra is clearly bright. Her snark is funny. Her arguments with her father are well reasoned. She is happy with her introversion. There are several excerpts of her writing in the book - brief reflections on herself and the trip. She is a talented writer. She appears to know herself way beyond her twelve years. I would have liked to hear more from her unfiltered by the author who mostly talks about their arguing. For instance, how did Lyra like going to school in the Netherlands where, not knowing the language, she mostly slept or read? Did she and her classmates share any growing-up insights and observations - most Dutch people apparently speak rudimentary to very good English? Instead, all we got was her father’s second-hand opinions.
I mentioned as a travelogue the book comes up short. Why? Every place the family goes, the author interacts almost exclusively with other white middle-class folks like himself. In New Zealand the interactions are at least with local Kiwis - English is the first language of white middle class New Zelanders. Because he doesn’t speak the language, the author relies on the impressions of other expats to understand the Netherlands. These expats are, say it in unison, white middle class people just like the author. Same in Costa Rica. The author has almost no interaction with Ticos but a lot with the expat community. There is a hint that Alia might speak some Spanish so I’m hoping they could order food in local dives - in the unlikely event they went to any.
Finally, the family alights in Hays, Kansas, a geographically isolated town of about 20,000. 89% white; 70% Trump supporters - the author perceives himself as being perceived as part of the ‘east coast elite’ and is stridently anti-Trump. There is no language barrier. Surely they get to know the locals in this immersive travel adventure. Well, no. The main fountain of progressive thought is apparently the faculty at Fort Hayes State University. The author interviews and relies upon many faculty members to get an impression of Hayes. To a person, they are white and middle class ‘expats’ - not from Hayes, culturally similar to the author and eager to get ‘the hell out of Dodge’ as soon as they can get a job elsewhere. (Confession: I have a relative and his wife who were for several years faculty members at FHSU but have since found jobs elsewhere. They are both briefly quoted in the book but did not really know the author. I was unaware of this connection when I started the book).
‘How To Be A Family’ is sometimes engaging. The author is sometimes funny. Usually in a self-deprecating or ‘family-deprecating’ way. The family does not do many interesting things while away. Their interactions appear to be similar to those they had while white suburban prisoners. Not a ton of warm family moments. The wife is largely unheard from and we are not privy to her thoughts. The effect on the children of their year away is not greatly discussed and certainly not directly from their mouths. The observations of other cultures is largely second hand, delivered (bizarrely?) from expats. It has to be an unreliable narrative when you rely on the thoughts of others who barely experience the local culture themselves. How would it affect a family to have these experiences? What are these places really like? That’s what I was looking for. I still don’t know
Ten year old Harper is always making friends, enjoys and interacts with her surroundings, and is generally a delightful child. Twelve year old Lyra is proudly and determinedly none of these things. Harper is a real person and no doubt terrific. But her portrait by her father, the author, is one dimensional and hence not very interesting. Perhaps all happy children are the same and it is not worth exploring their psyche and how the different cultures impact them. Lyra is the squeaky wheel and gets all the author’s ink. But that’s okay because she is the most interesting member of the family. Lyra likes to read and write and spend time on the internet. She is oppositional to her father. Just like at home, the author’s efforts to get Lyra outside the house and interact with others is largely unsuccessful. (Perhaps her mother, Alia, has a different take but she is largely invisible in this book. We don’t know her thoughts about anything including how she and her husband get along on this year of discovery. Maybe she didn’t give the author permission to disclose her thoughts).
Lyra’s schtick is to not like anything - especially whatever it is the rest of the family likes and wants to do. Lyra is clearly bright. Her snark is funny. Her arguments with her father are well reasoned. She is happy with her introversion. There are several excerpts of her writing in the book - brief reflections on herself and the trip. She is a talented writer. She appears to know herself way beyond her twelve years. I would have liked to hear more from her unfiltered by the author who mostly talks about their arguing. For instance, how did Lyra like going to school in the Netherlands where, not knowing the language, she mostly slept or read? Did she and her classmates share any growing-up insights and observations - most Dutch people apparently speak rudimentary to very good English? Instead, all we got was her father’s second-hand opinions.
I mentioned as a travelogue the book comes up short. Why? Every place the family goes, the author interacts almost exclusively with other white middle-class folks like himself. In New Zealand the interactions are at least with local Kiwis - English is the first language of white middle class New Zelanders. Because he doesn’t speak the language, the author relies on the impressions of other expats to understand the Netherlands. These expats are, say it in unison, white middle class people just like the author. Same in Costa Rica. The author has almost no interaction with Ticos but a lot with the expat community. There is a hint that Alia might speak some Spanish so I’m hoping they could order food in local dives - in the unlikely event they went to any.
Finally, the family alights in Hays, Kansas, a geographically isolated town of about 20,000. 89% white; 70% Trump supporters - the author perceives himself as being perceived as part of the ‘east coast elite’ and is stridently anti-Trump. There is no language barrier. Surely they get to know the locals in this immersive travel adventure. Well, no. The main fountain of progressive thought is apparently the faculty at Fort Hayes State University. The author interviews and relies upon many faculty members to get an impression of Hayes. To a person, they are white and middle class ‘expats’ - not from Hayes, culturally similar to the author and eager to get ‘the hell out of Dodge’ as soon as they can get a job elsewhere. (Confession: I have a relative and his wife who were for several years faculty members at FHSU but have since found jobs elsewhere. They are both briefly quoted in the book but did not really know the author. I was unaware of this connection when I started the book).
‘How To Be A Family’ is sometimes engaging. The author is sometimes funny. Usually in a self-deprecating or ‘family-deprecating’ way. The family does not do many interesting things while away. Their interactions appear to be similar to those they had while white suburban prisoners. Not a ton of warm family moments. The wife is largely unheard from and we are not privy to her thoughts. The effect on the children of their year away is not greatly discussed and certainly not directly from their mouths. The observations of other cultures is largely second hand, delivered (bizarrely?) from expats. It has to be an unreliable narrative when you rely on the thoughts of others who barely experience the local culture themselves. How would it affect a family to have these experiences? What are these places really like? That’s what I was looking for. I still don’t know
October 5, 2019
I like the premise.....
But I see no way to truly integrate into communities and learn from their different parenting styles in 12 weeks.
I guess I should be talking to my neighbors who moved to Scotland for a year so the husband could continue his education. Or my college friend who packed up her kids, quit her job, and is living in Germany for two years. Those people have had time to integrate and learn from the culture they're living in. This author and his family spent a college quarter in each place. That's hardly enough time to figure out where your sociology class is, much less figure out how this new culture can improve your parenting skills and revolutionize your family.
I like the premise, but not the product.
But I see no way to truly integrate into communities and learn from their different parenting styles in 12 weeks.
I guess I should be talking to my neighbors who moved to Scotland for a year so the husband could continue his education. Or my college friend who packed up her kids, quit her job, and is living in Germany for two years. Those people have had time to integrate and learn from the culture they're living in. This author and his family spent a college quarter in each place. That's hardly enough time to figure out where your sociology class is, much less figure out how this new culture can improve your parenting skills and revolutionize your family.
I like the premise, but not the product.
October 7, 2019
Fair warning: I'm a big fan of Dan's from the podcast, Mom and Dad Are Fighting. I find him immensely relatable, funny and frankly, I just want to have a beer with him and vent about parenting.
This book is refreshingly honest and funny, a fascinating study in family and cultural dynamics. Highly recommend.
This book is refreshingly honest and funny, a fascinating study in family and cultural dynamics. Highly recommend.
September 8, 2020
I thought the concept was interesting, however, I do not believe the Kois family spent enough time in any place to really determine the best way of life. Many reviews talked about the author being elite and smug, and it really seemed like the only take-away from his year away from the Beltway was riding his bike like a Dutchman and letting the kids have a bit of say in the travel agenda. Kois seems to be somewhat out of touch with his daughters, and not allowing them time to do something they would enjoy on a family vacation explains much of their friction. At least he was able to see himself in many of Lyra's actions, however, it reads that Harper is the favorite child. I'm a bit surprised that this made it on the Kansas Notable Book list for 2020.
October 12, 2019
Had no intention of reading, much less buying, this book until I heard the author read a chapter aloud on one of my favorite podcasts. (Mom and dad are fighting) The existential crisises he spoke about were so relatable that I immediately bought the book. Loved it. Smart and funny, shares the kids perspective, honest about the struggles and the joys. I very much relate to how he thinks about parenting, and I appreciate that.
March 16, 2020
This got rave reviews and so I put it on hold at the library.
I read the whole thing, half the time wondering why.
It would have been improved with fewer complaints about the teenage daughter. :-(
I read the whole thing, half the time wondering why.
It would have been improved with fewer complaints about the teenage daughter. :-(
May 8, 2019
Dan Kois and his wife Alia Smith realized their lives in Arlington, VA were overworked and over stressed. Both worked long hours, their kids attended a high achieving/high pressure school and they battled about screen time. They decided to take a year and live in different places to see how others lived. They spent a few months each in different countries--New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica--ending in an area of America very different from their home: rural Kansas.
I enjoyed seeing what aspects of each area they liked best (ex: the extremely bike friendly structure of the Netherlands). Kois's writing is enjoyable to read and I appreciated his honest style. There's no holier than thou parenting advice here. This is how his family truly is.
I empathized with Lyra, his then 11 year old daughter, who instead of trekking around the world and seeking adventure and the outdoors, just wanted to be left alone to read. It was especially painful to read about her experience in the Dutch school, where they prize normality and couldn't abide by the idea that she would voice a dissenting opinion.
As someone who lives in rural Minnesota, I'll admit I was rooting for them to settle down in Kansas. Kois talks about many of the benefits of this lifestyle: no traffic, cheap housing, free evenings (not overworked), friendly people, a sense of community and the ability to start programs etc where you see something lacking. I loved Kois' description of the Hays Public Library and the awesome librarians that work there. It reminded me of the public library where I work :D.
In the end Kois avoids taking an even higher stress job in Silicon Valley. It was painful to read the salary he could have had ($750,000 dollars--I didn't even know this was a thing), but redeeming that his family realized their original complaints (stress, long hours, etc) would have only been exasperated with this lifestyle change.
Recommended for parents who like to read memoirs or about travel or parenting.
I enjoyed seeing what aspects of each area they liked best (ex: the extremely bike friendly structure of the Netherlands). Kois's writing is enjoyable to read and I appreciated his honest style. There's no holier than thou parenting advice here. This is how his family truly is.
I empathized with Lyra, his then 11 year old daughter, who instead of trekking around the world and seeking adventure and the outdoors, just wanted to be left alone to read. It was especially painful to read about her experience in the Dutch school, where they prize normality and couldn't abide by the idea that she would voice a dissenting opinion.
As someone who lives in rural Minnesota, I'll admit I was rooting for them to settle down in Kansas. Kois talks about many of the benefits of this lifestyle: no traffic, cheap housing, free evenings (not overworked), friendly people, a sense of community and the ability to start programs etc where you see something lacking. I loved Kois' description of the Hays Public Library and the awesome librarians that work there. It reminded me of the public library where I work :D.
In the end Kois avoids taking an even higher stress job in Silicon Valley. It was painful to read the salary he could have had ($750,000 dollars--I didn't even know this was a thing), but redeeming that his family realized their original complaints (stress, long hours, etc) would have only been exasperated with this lifestyle change.
Recommended for parents who like to read memoirs or about travel or parenting.
April 4, 2020
Well I always call Dan Kois my favorite Slate person. I know him from the Mom and Dad Are Fighting podcast, so I am predisposed to like his book. I like his voice and his point and view, and I relate to what he values in life: adventure, kindness, community and saying yes. He just makes me laugh and smile. My hopes for this book were met, given my affection for good ‘ol Dan. It was really readable, insightful and fun, like the author. I also have done a round the world trip, so I related to his insights on this supposedly life-changing experience - the loneliness of being away and the way life returned seamlessly to normal. Wherever you are, you are still you, and your family is still what it is. The setting doesn’t change those essential things. But through his determination to be together as a family, warts and all, Dan has made me think about meaningful ways to be with my family too.
November 11, 2024
Other than the spates of arrogant, elitist smugness that permeated the family's year long examination of family, parenting and children in four geographic areas outside the Smith-Kois insular bubble of Eastern pretentiousness, I had an enjoyable read...But, the insistent disdain for elements of "lives of the Deplorables," rankled...Upon closer examination, I saw that Dan Kois is an editor for the on-line magazine Slate, so I'm not shocked in the least...Basically, the family spent three months each in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica and "Flyover" Hays, Kansas, escaping from their overworked and over stressed lives of both the adults and 2 young daughters...Good read and food for thought!!!
March 1, 2021
Loved this audiobook — honest, funny, insightful. I know of the author from the podcast Mom And Dad Are Fighting and like his podcast enjoyed the balance of thoughtfulness and irreverence. Highly recommend to all parents.
March 17, 2020
Had to force myself to finish reading it only because I was just over halfway through, and felt I needed to. I was excited to learn about living in different countries, however I felt a lot of the book was complaining about how different it was from the US, how annoying his daughters were, and complaining about politics.
January 8, 2020
DNF @ 37%
Couldn't stand how the dad kept disregarding his daughter's feelings as her being a moody teenager. They didn't even ask their kids before deciding to go on this trip! What awful parents. They had already started carelessly smoking weed before even getting to Amsterdam, too.
Couldn't stand how the dad kept disregarding his daughter's feelings as her being a moody teenager. They didn't even ask their kids before deciding to go on this trip! What awful parents. They had already started carelessly smoking weed before even getting to Amsterdam, too.
Read
May 16, 2022I'm a big fan of the podcast Mom and Dad Are Fighting, which was co-hosted for many years by Dan Kois, and I knew that Dan and I would both be at the Iceland Writers Retreat, so I wanted to read his memoir. Funny, thought-provoking.
dnf
October 13, 2019Dan is so much fun as a podcaster, but as a parenting writer - yawn.
November 5, 2019
I really wanted to like this but the author came off as obnoxious a lot.
April 16, 2020
When I heard that Dan Kois, Slate’s parenting editor and co-host of the parenting advice podcast “Mom and Dad Are Fighting,” had written a book, I assumed it would be about parenting, and it kinda is, sorta. Kois and his wife decided to take their two kids on a four-country tour over the course of a year as “a chance to control-alt-delete the life we’d trapped ourselves in,” one characterized by a disappointing squeeze play: not getting enough time together and then struggling to fight off screens and connect in what little they did. How To Be a Family is the resulting memoir-slash-travelogue. Like their trip, it’s glorious in parts but disappointingly uneven—and it just ends, without any life-altering insight. That doesn't mean the endeavor lacks value, quite the contrary.
First, the good parts.
Kois is almost unerringly self-aware and unabashed about both his personal failings and structural ones from which his family benefits (e.g., “It didn’t escape my notice that we were avidly seeking international diversity after making a set of educational and lifestyle choices that had mostly eliminated diversity from our American lives”). That makes for plenty of refreshing and relatable mea culpas (e.g., “We paid our wonderful babysitter ... hundreds of extra dollars,” to watch the kids during snow days, he writes, “just so we could do distracted, not-very-good work during the day and then yell at our children after she left”).
He has a related knack for producing every-man imagery, evocative metaphors without the taint of writerly pretension: “The bays carved out of the land like bites from an apple,” he writes in describing New Zealand . There, Kois and his family saw hikers with infants in front-packs and toddlers in backpacks: “One poor bastard had one of each, both of them squealing and waving their arms about; he looked like a stormtrooper being brought down by rowdy Ewoks,” he writes. In Costa Rica they encountered “[b]ig fat flies, electric blue, that hover in front of your face like Snitches” and a “beautiful purple-and-blue butterfly with the same wingspan as a mass-market paperback.”
You can see in these descriptions the magically dry wit that Kois seems to have tucked away in his pocket, choosing to sprinkle it throughout his writing and IRL conversations like fairy dust. When it comes to physique, he says, “Dutch people like to credit the sneaky healthiness of their cuisine and all their bike riding; those of us who rode bikes around Holland for three months and did not lose any weight might also gently suggest there may be a genetic component.” And then there’s the time Kois deadpans, “Quiet reflection in nature is for Thoreau, because he is childless and dead.”
Packaged thusly, Kois delivers interesting, nuanced observations about parents in New Zealand fostering independence and the Dutch making consensus-based family decisions. He reports on “a public policy in New Zealand that had a concrete effect on the way parents parent. Personal-injury lawsuits are essentially nonexistent [thanks to] a government-run scheme that pays for any injury stemming from an accident, no matter whose fault it is.” And he delves into why it’s possible in the Netherlands for bikers to safely be “helmetless, unprotected from cars except by custom, respect, and the forethought that comes from [a driver] being able to think like a cyclist.”
Pieces of chapters read like thoroughly reported articles. Other chunks, most notably “The Dance Recital,” could stand alone as expertly crafted essays. But large parts are loose, and the book’s shifting style feels unsettling. The Contributions from Kois’s wife and girls didn’t do much for me, seeming more like page filler than anything else. The same thing goes for tangents that the editor in Kois must have known needed cutting. These weren’t the only aspects of How To Be a Family that felt schticky: both the captain’s log and the Cosmo-style "I tried it for a month" bits fell flat. And while some chapters worked others felt more like a first draft with excessive road marks, dicey pacing, and trouble discerning what details hold universal appeal.
I suspect it’s because Kois slam-dunked so many aspects of the book that I felt disappointed by the parts that air balled. But at the end of the day, we get a good deal of this guy, and for that How To Be a Family is worth reading:
"Thank God for cards. One problem with spending time with your children, Alia and I have discovered in this year of spending time with our children, is that a lot of the stuff you can do with children is just awful…. [But then there’s a variation of the card game a$$hole.] I can’t think of another activity in which adults can play at the peak of their abilities and kids can still prevail. Limbo, I guess. Now, as a grown man, do I actually care whether I win or lose at cards with my loving family? Of course I do. I want to win. If I must lose, I at least want my wife to also lose. But I admit that the seductiveness of card-playing with my kids goes beyond the pleasure of ascending to kingship …. It has to do with my desire, so often thwarted these days, to look at them. Back when they were babies, we could look at them all the time. There were years of my life when I felt I did nothing but look at my children, afraid that if I looked away for even one second, they would be eaten by tigers. But now they disappear into screens and schools, behind closed doors, or out in the world. Even when they’re around, I find it difficult to cadge a good long look; it is the plight of the parent of tweens to desire nothing more than to look at his kids in peace and to be rebuffed most of the time by his kids saying, correctly, 'Stop staring at me, that’s weird.' But around the table, playing cabbages and kings, they’re concerned with how to get rid of that solitary six or when to spring the triple fours. They don’t notice that I am drinking in the way their faces resemble their cousins’, the ways they express exasperation, their glee at unexpected windfalls…. the game that gets all four of us around the table and, briefly, off one another’s nerves."
First, the good parts.
Kois is almost unerringly self-aware and unabashed about both his personal failings and structural ones from which his family benefits (e.g., “It didn’t escape my notice that we were avidly seeking international diversity after making a set of educational and lifestyle choices that had mostly eliminated diversity from our American lives”). That makes for plenty of refreshing and relatable mea culpas (e.g., “We paid our wonderful babysitter ... hundreds of extra dollars,” to watch the kids during snow days, he writes, “just so we could do distracted, not-very-good work during the day and then yell at our children after she left”).
He has a related knack for producing every-man imagery, evocative metaphors without the taint of writerly pretension: “The bays carved out of the land like bites from an apple,” he writes in describing New Zealand . There, Kois and his family saw hikers with infants in front-packs and toddlers in backpacks: “One poor bastard had one of each, both of them squealing and waving their arms about; he looked like a stormtrooper being brought down by rowdy Ewoks,” he writes. In Costa Rica they encountered “[b]ig fat flies, electric blue, that hover in front of your face like Snitches” and a “beautiful purple-and-blue butterfly with the same wingspan as a mass-market paperback.”
You can see in these descriptions the magically dry wit that Kois seems to have tucked away in his pocket, choosing to sprinkle it throughout his writing and IRL conversations like fairy dust. When it comes to physique, he says, “Dutch people like to credit the sneaky healthiness of their cuisine and all their bike riding; those of us who rode bikes around Holland for three months and did not lose any weight might also gently suggest there may be a genetic component.” And then there’s the time Kois deadpans, “Quiet reflection in nature is for Thoreau, because he is childless and dead.”
Packaged thusly, Kois delivers interesting, nuanced observations about parents in New Zealand fostering independence and the Dutch making consensus-based family decisions. He reports on “a public policy in New Zealand that had a concrete effect on the way parents parent. Personal-injury lawsuits are essentially nonexistent [thanks to] a government-run scheme that pays for any injury stemming from an accident, no matter whose fault it is.” And he delves into why it’s possible in the Netherlands for bikers to safely be “helmetless, unprotected from cars except by custom, respect, and the forethought that comes from [a driver] being able to think like a cyclist.”
Pieces of chapters read like thoroughly reported articles. Other chunks, most notably “The Dance Recital,” could stand alone as expertly crafted essays. But large parts are loose, and the book’s shifting style feels unsettling. The Contributions from Kois’s wife and girls didn’t do much for me, seeming more like page filler than anything else. The same thing goes for tangents that the editor in Kois must have known needed cutting. These weren’t the only aspects of How To Be a Family that felt schticky: both the captain’s log and the Cosmo-style "I tried it for a month" bits fell flat. And while some chapters worked others felt more like a first draft with excessive road marks, dicey pacing, and trouble discerning what details hold universal appeal.
I suspect it’s because Kois slam-dunked so many aspects of the book that I felt disappointed by the parts that air balled. But at the end of the day, we get a good deal of this guy, and for that How To Be a Family is worth reading:
"Thank God for cards. One problem with spending time with your children, Alia and I have discovered in this year of spending time with our children, is that a lot of the stuff you can do with children is just awful…. [But then there’s a variation of the card game a$$hole.] I can’t think of another activity in which adults can play at the peak of their abilities and kids can still prevail. Limbo, I guess. Now, as a grown man, do I actually care whether I win or lose at cards with my loving family? Of course I do. I want to win. If I must lose, I at least want my wife to also lose. But I admit that the seductiveness of card-playing with my kids goes beyond the pleasure of ascending to kingship …. It has to do with my desire, so often thwarted these days, to look at them. Back when they were babies, we could look at them all the time. There were years of my life when I felt I did nothing but look at my children, afraid that if I looked away for even one second, they would be eaten by tigers. But now they disappear into screens and schools, behind closed doors, or out in the world. Even when they’re around, I find it difficult to cadge a good long look; it is the plight of the parent of tweens to desire nothing more than to look at his kids in peace and to be rebuffed most of the time by his kids saying, correctly, 'Stop staring at me, that’s weird.' But around the table, playing cabbages and kings, they’re concerned with how to get rid of that solitary six or when to spring the triple fours. They don’t notice that I am drinking in the way their faces resemble their cousins’, the ways they express exasperation, their glee at unexpected windfalls…. the game that gets all four of us around the table and, briefly, off one another’s nerves."
December 25, 2019
stressed-out Arlington VA dual-professional couple with 11 and 9-yo daughters pulls up stakes to spend 2017 three months at a time in New Zealand, Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas hoping to discover more relaxed, meaning-laden ways to live and to raise their kids.
some interesting observations about places [Amsterdam bike culture, New Zealand's natural beauty, centrality of church in their Kansas town, sheer physical difficulty [bugs, rainy season, etc.] of living in Costa Rica] and the people they meet, but mainly memorable for the author's own very funny [to me] reflections and observations about his efforts as a Dad and his self-questioning about career aspirations, culminating in tough decision to turn down very lucrative Silicon Valley job that seemed likely to exacerbate the aspects of life in Arlington with which they were already dissatisfied.
Guessing that his wife may have been a somewhat reluctant participant in the project, as there is not a lot from her p.o.v., and her profile is somewhat incredibly positive. The daughters come in for blunter feedback -- in a nutshell, the younger one is charming, spirited, up for whatever, sociable, though at times exasperatingly clingy/present with parents, "craftswoman of artisanal nonsense" (p. 38). The older one seems to struggle the most with the year away, being a quiet reader who mostly wants to get on the internet for hours at a time and be left alone rather than get roped into what my own Dad used to call "compulsory fun" outings/projects. To be fair, he lets her have her own say in a few sidebars, and she's quite a good writer [like her Dad] and arguer [presumably like her Mom, a lawyer]. I can see how the Dutch teachers who apparently brook no backtalk got worn out by her.
Author and his wife had [prior to trip] a catchphrase for efficient commentary on people doing dumb stuff: "Esbu" [for "everyone sucks but us"] (p. 10). This made me laugh in itself, but also captured what I loved about this book, which is that the author emphatically does NOT approach the communities in which they landed for a while with an "esbu" attitude. He came across as genuinely open-minded, knowing they wanted to shake things up and being receptive to, though not uncritical about, what each place had to teach.
He ends up sounding a little disappointed that they did not have some all-purpose epiphany about life and parenting [made some modest changes such as increasing volunteering and churchgoing, but mostly came back and fell into old patterns I guess], but I'm sure it will be a memorable, meaningful experience for his daughters and therefore the whole family. Glad he chose to write it up.
some interesting observations about places [Amsterdam bike culture, New Zealand's natural beauty, centrality of church in their Kansas town, sheer physical difficulty [bugs, rainy season, etc.] of living in Costa Rica] and the people they meet, but mainly memorable for the author's own very funny [to me] reflections and observations about his efforts as a Dad and his self-questioning about career aspirations, culminating in tough decision to turn down very lucrative Silicon Valley job that seemed likely to exacerbate the aspects of life in Arlington with which they were already dissatisfied.
Guessing that his wife may have been a somewhat reluctant participant in the project, as there is not a lot from her p.o.v., and her profile is somewhat incredibly positive. The daughters come in for blunter feedback -- in a nutshell, the younger one is charming, spirited, up for whatever, sociable, though at times exasperatingly clingy/present with parents, "craftswoman of artisanal nonsense" (p. 38). The older one seems to struggle the most with the year away, being a quiet reader who mostly wants to get on the internet for hours at a time and be left alone rather than get roped into what my own Dad used to call "compulsory fun" outings/projects. To be fair, he lets her have her own say in a few sidebars, and she's quite a good writer [like her Dad] and arguer [presumably like her Mom, a lawyer]. I can see how the Dutch teachers who apparently brook no backtalk got worn out by her.
Author and his wife had [prior to trip] a catchphrase for efficient commentary on people doing dumb stuff: "Esbu" [for "everyone sucks but us"] (p. 10). This made me laugh in itself, but also captured what I loved about this book, which is that the author emphatically does NOT approach the communities in which they landed for a while with an "esbu" attitude. He came across as genuinely open-minded, knowing they wanted to shake things up and being receptive to, though not uncritical about, what each place had to teach.
He ends up sounding a little disappointed that they did not have some all-purpose epiphany about life and parenting [made some modest changes such as increasing volunteering and churchgoing, but mostly came back and fell into old patterns I guess], but I'm sure it will be a memorable, meaningful experience for his daughters and therefore the whole family. Glad he chose to write it up.
December 28, 2022
I enjoyed hearing about the various areas the Kois family lived in and how everyone adapted. Since I'm from small town Kansas, I found the part about their living three months in Hays, Kansas, interesting. I actually found it nice to see that they enjoyed their time in Hays. Although, if they really wanted to see a small town environment I would think that one with a population between 1500-4500 might have been more representative. But I'm not sure how it might have changed their perspectives. Many of the comments about life in Hays and the people might have still been similar. But, those of us that have lived around actual small town Kansas consider Hays as one of the bigger towns! (Those of us outside the metro areas and Lawrence).
I realize that for people that have always lived in sizable cities (New York, Arlington, etc., in this case) consider pretty much all Kansas communities as "small".
Especially interesting was Dan's comments about Kansas being a red state and discovering the people he met didn't fit his pre-conceived ideas about what that might mean. Growing up with a grandmother in Kansas Democratic politics and definitely leaning further left than right, I never saw anything odd about many (most) of our neighbors and friends being Republicans. It didn't matter so much. It's sad that the current political climate tries to draw a line between people this way... But it was interesting that Kois noticed that politics in Kansas doesn't necessarily have to divide people. We've elected quite a few Democratic governors for a "red state."
I'm not sure the parenting aspect was this book's strength; but as a memoir of their year travelling/living around the world it worked.
I realize that for people that have always lived in sizable cities (New York, Arlington, etc., in this case) consider pretty much all Kansas communities as "small".
Especially interesting was Dan's comments about Kansas being a red state and discovering the people he met didn't fit his pre-conceived ideas about what that might mean. Growing up with a grandmother in Kansas Democratic politics and definitely leaning further left than right, I never saw anything odd about many (most) of our neighbors and friends being Republicans. It didn't matter so much. It's sad that the current political climate tries to draw a line between people this way... But it was interesting that Kois noticed that politics in Kansas doesn't necessarily have to divide people. We've elected quite a few Democratic governors for a "red state."
I'm not sure the parenting aspect was this book's strength; but as a memoir of their year travelling/living around the world it worked.
March 24, 2020
As a dad and overall family man with an interest in international travel and having seen the author's promotion of the book on Twitter, I was looking forward to this for a while, and I read with a mix of envy, fascination, disbelief and vicarious embarrassment: Such a cool project! Seems both aspirational and necessary! But also really difficult! And, wow, really a lot of detail - finances, laundry, arguments, the works! The previous section brought to you as a reflection of the volume of exclamation points in this book, which reminded me of The Awl and overall web writing circa early 2010's but even more so! It's a lot. I admire Dan's family's willingness to be chronicled in this way (especially his daughters, around whom so much of the activity centers), and I liked their periodic commentaries, though, looking back, I feel like his wife only had one or, in any case, should have had more. I read this right after my wife and we both said we should come up with our own lists of four places where we'd live if we were to recreate this ourselves - still haven't done it, but I'd like to!
December 30, 2020
What a disappointing book. I read the New Zealand section and skipped to Kansas, and then skimmed it with the hope that the author would climb down off his pedestal of arrogance.
This family only sought out communities of people who were just like them, economically, politically and educationally. They trashed and apologized for the USA and President Trump wherever they went. Even in Kansas, where 70% of the small town had voted for Trump, they held themselves above the locals, using the progressive university as a way to find folks good enough, and to feel better about being in an area of such ignorant rubes, where everyone, horror of horrors with a huge dose of disbelief, actually went to church regularly.
Do people who do adventuresome things like this have the ability to write from a neutral political viewpoint? Why the continual need to bash President Trump? Are neutrals, much less conservatives even able to find publishers?
This family only sought out communities of people who were just like them, economically, politically and educationally. They trashed and apologized for the USA and President Trump wherever they went. Even in Kansas, where 70% of the small town had voted for Trump, they held themselves above the locals, using the progressive university as a way to find folks good enough, and to feel better about being in an area of such ignorant rubes, where everyone, horror of horrors with a huge dose of disbelief, actually went to church regularly.
Do people who do adventuresome things like this have the ability to write from a neutral political viewpoint? Why the continual need to bash President Trump? Are neutrals, much less conservatives even able to find publishers?
January 12, 2020
Oh, gosh, this book is parenting writ large: reconciling your fierce optimism and hopes for your family with the disappointing realities of daily life and the realization of the impossibility of the task you’ve set for yourself and still finding both the absurdity and beauty therein. If you know Dan’s voice from the Mom and Dad Are Fighting podcast, you will find the tone of this book very familiar.
February 10, 2022
Inspiring, entertaining, refreshingly honest.
April 22, 2021
No one ever prepares you for how much of adulthood is just googling "how to immigrate to New Zealand"
December 28, 2020
I'm giving this book my standard rating for whenever the author, no matter the subject (unless the book's subject IS politics), seems to be more interested in Trump-bashing and conservative-bashing than in the purported subject matter. In this case, the author goes a step further and expresses strong opinions against his fellow Americans.
The author and his wife "drag" their kids around the world, spending three months each in various locales for a year. He's smug, arrogant, elitist, and looks down upon anyone who thinks differently than he does, even though he is guilty of the same things he looks down upon others for doing!
His family's trip was wasted because they basically only wanted to interact with other people just like themselves who mirror their own thinking. Sadly, a great premise was wasted.
The author and his wife "drag" their kids around the world, spending three months each in various locales for a year. He's smug, arrogant, elitist, and looks down upon anyone who thinks differently than he does, even though he is guilty of the same things he looks down upon others for doing!
His family's trip was wasted because they basically only wanted to interact with other people just like themselves who mirror their own thinking. Sadly, a great premise was wasted.
December 18, 2019
With writing that is sharp and funny, this memoir was a pleasure to read. I deeply felt at one with Dan Kois’s feelings of failure as a parent in the honest vignettes he details in the book and enjoyed the conclusions that he drew from his family’s round-the-world year: the trip didn’t change their life - the trip was their life and it remains their life forevermore. The fact that they were all in it together the entire year was what made the difference, not the actual places or different parenting philosophies they tried on for size. That being said, the varying approaches to raising kids and interpersonal relationships in general in the four places they lived was really interesting.
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