Shatters some preconceived notions of parenthood and presents a solution-oriented response to strengthening the family.
Westman, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, questions what rights children have over their own care.
As a nation, are we denying children their basic rights of humanity by favoring their parents’ rights over their own? Westman examines such controversial questions and considers how certain standards of parenthood should be upheld. In a thoughtful, thorough investigation into what has gone wrong in the child-parent-family dynamic, Westman focuses on our cultural, societal and political systems. One of the main problems, he says, is “juvenile ageism,” or our failure to consider children as full citizens in need of and deserving of parents who are qualified to manage their care. Equally problematic, he says, is that parenthood isn’t treated as a career—a damaging, ultimately counterproductive problem, he says, since many parents do not have the emotional, financial and logistical support necessary to take care of their children. “This decline in family wellbeing,” Westman writes, “deprives us of parents who are able to develop the characters and wellbeing of our young people…our nation’s greatest natural resource.” This isn’t only an issue of children’s rights, though, but a larger social concern, since these children ultimately grow into adults who will either contribute positively to society or perpetuate cycles of abuse and neglect. Westman deftly takes on assumptions about parenthood and child care—for example, the idea that a genetic connection is an automatic basis for a parent to have custody of their child even if that parent is too young and/or incompetent to handle the responsibility. In that vein, Westman makes a solid argument that, as a society, we need to be more proactive in helping both parents and children. One of his more controversial proposals is the idea that minors, people with mental health problems and/or anyone currently incarcerated should go through a certification process to make sure they are competent to take on the responsibility of parenthood. This burden isn’t punitive, Westman argues, but an effort to provide support and guidance to help parents create healthy, sustainable and safe family structures.
Shatters some preconceived notions of parenthood and presents a solution-oriented response to strengthening the family.Pub Date: May 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482381962
Page Count: 262
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.
An author’s trip to Venice takes a distinctly Borgesian turn.
In November 2020, soccer club Venizia F.C. offered Nigerian American author Madu a writing residency as part of its plan “to turn the team into a global entity of fashion, culture, and sports.” Flying to Venice for the fellowship, he felt guilty about leaving his immigrant parents, who were shocked to learn upon moving to the U.S. years earlier that their Nigerian teaching certifications were invalid, forcing his father to work as a stocking clerk at Rite Aid to support the family. Madu’s experiences in Venice are incidental to what is primarily a story about his family, especially his strained relationship with his father, who was disappointed with many of his son’s choices. Unfortunately, the author’s seeming disinterest in Venice renders much of the narrative colorless. He says the trip across the Ponte della Libertà bridge was “magical,” but nothing he describes—the “endless water on both sides,” the nearby seagulls—is particularly remarkable. Little in the text conveys a sense of place or the unique character of his surroundings. Madu is at his best when he focuses on family dynamics and his observations that, in the largely deserted city, “I was one of the few Black people around.” He cites Borges, giving special note to the author’s “The House of Asterion,” in which the minotaur “explains his situation as a creature and as a creature within the labyrinth” of multiple mirrors. This notion leads to the Borgesian turn in the book’s second half, when, in an extended sequence, Madu imagines himself transformed into a minotaur, with “the head of a bull” and his body “larger, thicker, powerful but also cumbersome.” It’s an engaging passage, although stylistically out of keeping with much of what has come before.
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781953368669
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
Of most interest to dyed-in-the-wool lovers or haters.
“Not a Cinderella story.”
Baldwin’s loosely written memoir is about motherhood and pregnancy loss, marriage to a celebrity, being the target of gossip and criticism, the experiences of neurodivergency and bilingualism, and more. “When Alec and I met, I was twenty-seven and he was fifty-three,” she writes. “Now, it’s nearly a decade and a half later….People always ask me: What is life actually like with seven kids (and an Alec)? It’s amazing and chaotic.” This book comes on the heels of the first season of the family’s reality show, The Baldwins, seemingly designed to answer the same burning question. While the author seems like a nice, well-meaning person, one comes away from this memoir hoping the television version, with the story sculpted by professionals, is the more entertaining response. Given the fact that there has been controversy about Baldwin’s background, perhaps she should have written a straightforward autobiography. But she has not, and the reader might need to do some research to understand the nature of some of the attacks she writes about. The veracity of her Spanish identity has come under fire, as her birth name is Hilary, she was born in Boston, and is not of Latine descent—but you won’t learn those facts from this book. The author’s relative youth, her choice to have her sixth child via surrogate, and Alec Baldwin’s involvement in the death of a colleague on a film set have all been media fodder. She discusses several specific nemeses without naming them, which is not very interesting. “I grapple with the question: Why am I here in the public space? Why am I ‘relevant’? Am I here because an actor fell in love with me? Am I here because I’m a yoga teacher and have things to say about mental and physical health? Am I here because I had a lot of kids?” It’s not clear that she knows, and neither will you.
Of most interest to dyed-in-the-wool lovers or haters.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781668009987
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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