Parent power/child power: A new and tested method for parenting without guilt

by Helen De Rosis

237 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

i found this book on the curb one weekend while i was walking through my neighborhood. its title was enough to get me to open to the table of contents, and when i spotted a chapter called "sex education for the under 6," i knew i had to take it home to add to my collection of found/thrifted women's lib-era self-help books.

i haven't been feeling well, so i ended up reading this book cover-to-cover curled up on my couch. and it was. so. weird! it was published in 1974, so its references are dated and its gender politics are bonkers. there's a surprising amount in there about policing your child's appearance, and it's almost always a girl child in the examples. shocking. there's also almost an entire chapter on parental "vibes."

but there's also a LOT of real talk about parental anxiety and the ways that anxiety manifests itself in patterns of destructive communication with your kids. and i thought that, and the stuff about contradictory messages parents give their kids, was totally interesting and legit. overall, worth picking up off the curb for the entertainment value alone.

p.s. the sex ed chapter was kind of a disappointment (for this sex ed nerd, anyway), but it did include the term "sissy hole", which was new to me, so i guess that's something.

[Amber]

1 copy available