The Overparenting Epidemic.



by George S. Glass and David Tabatsky (2014)

This was happily a very quick read: happily because it was mostly pretty depressing, and quick because it was both banal and repetitive by turns.   You could get a broad idea of where the argument was going as soon as you saw the subtitle on each page, and there wasn't much to be gained by doing more than scanning the rest.  On top of this, a lot of the references that supported the major arguments weren't to research papers, which whilst being admittedly pretty unreliable in themselves, are nonetheless probably better resources than the "How To" website or NBC News upon which much of this book relied.

The authors seemed hell-bent on haranguing parents for all manner of perceived crimes of over-parenting, from being too anxious about injury to doing a child's homework.  As a parent, one is likely to spend the whole book thinking "Is this me?  Perhaps, I dunno.  I think I might have done that once or twice", which is akin to the experience of reading an astrology chart - you can make almost anything fit if you try hard enough.  This is obviously an uncomfortable experience which isn't much relieved by sensing that the psychiatrist author (Dr. Glass) is using the opportunity to vent splenetically after years of dealing with the products of poor parenting in his consulting rooms.  In this regard, there are echos of Theodore Dalrymple's approach to writing which makes one thoroughly averse to listening to it.  These perfect self-elected gods writing from on high, immune to the complexities and vicissitudes of ordinary life, but powerful and judgmental as powerful people are prone to be - it is enough to make one cavil, even if the argument does probably hold at least a smidgen of merit.

But I'm not even sure it does that.  Reading Robert Plomin et al, one is led to believe that parenting makes sod all difference - it's either all in the genes, or else in random environmental effects which have nothing whatsoever to do with parenting.  Really, at this point, the average reader is none the wiser!

Rating 4/10

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