HOW TO SURVIVE PARENTHOOD

At a time when most books about being a parent or bringing up a child are of really marginal interest, Mrs. Leshan's is an exception and as lively as its subject. She is a mother, a therapist, and has worked extensively in child guidance and nursery school groups, and while her book is not one of specifics about child development in general, she presents a great many approaches and attitudes which will help to ease the ""parental strain."" Bearing up does not necessarily mean bearing with: permissiveness is often just a refusal to be a parent, and she discusses the unready child-adult as well as the parent's sensitivity to her child's growth. Environment is not wholly decisive since ""constitutional differences"" are more often inborn than inbred. There are sections on three phases (preschool, middle years, adolescence); on the working mother who is to be found in the home as well as outside of it (and, by the way, having a career has nothing to do with being a good or bad mother); on dad, poor dad, and if he's ""hanging in the closet"" he chose it-- every child wants a father to represent law and order... Mrs. Leshan's deductions and directives are true; her illustrative material is uncommonly full of common interest; and her survival kit is filled with supplementary intelligence.