Why read Anxious Parents?

Book cover of Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America

Book description

An examination into the history of modern parenting
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a dramatic shift in the role of children in American society and families. No longer necessary for labor, children became economic liabilities and twentieth-century parents exhibited a new level of anxiety concerning the welfare of their…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Anxious Parents as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Paula S. Fass

Author

Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America probes what I consider to be the basic dilemma of modern American parenting – how the love for children and concern for their welfare has led to growing anxiety among parents eager to do it right.

In imaginative research into different dimensions of culture, Stearns shows that middle-class parents became increasingly self-conscious and self-questioning about meeting the needs of their children starting in the early twentieth century. The book probes the emotional consequences of modern parenting’s commitment to encouraging child expression and individual happiness.

Stearns’s exploration demonstrates one of the consequences…

From Paula's list on The best books to understand American parenting.