Tarney’s son Harry was just 2 years old when he told her, “inside my head I’m a girl.” Uncertain what to make of her son’s...
The mother of a gender creative child reflects on the unique path of his development from childhood to adulthood.
Tarney’s son Harry was just 2 years old when he told her, “inside my head I’m a girl.” Uncertain what to make of her son’s statement or how to interpret his fondness for dolls and dressing up in girl’s clothes, the author looked for answers in the work of child experts like Benjamin Spock. However, no one could help her figure out how to keep her son psychologically healthy on one hand and free from peer teasing on the other. Terrified that she would become like her own controlling mother, Tarney tried to find or create environments that offered Harry a maximum of personal expressive freedom. Rather than send him to a uniform-mandatory school, she chose one where children could wear what they liked. At home, she gave Harry full freedom to dress up in wigs, skirts, dresses, and high-heeled shoes and indulge in his penchant for performance. As he approached his middle school years, Harry began to face the inevitable hurtful comments of classmates who called him “needle dick” and “faggot.” But he learned to cope with homophobia, first by excelling academically and then by learning how to channel his dramatic abilities and love of the outrageous in ways that eventually made him one of the most popular people in high school. Harry’s own development into a confident, self-loving person inspired Tarney to follow her own dreams away from Milwaukee to live the life of a free spirit in Brooklyn. Not only does the book chronicle an especially memorable mother-son relationship. It also suggests that the best parenting is the kind that does not forcibly mold a child into what he/she “should” be but lovingly allows him/her the freedom to follow his/her own special path.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-299-31060-8
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Univ. of Wisconsin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after...
Self-help advice and personal reflections on avoiding spousal fights while raising children.
Before her daughter was born, bestselling author Dunn (Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask, 2009, etc.) enjoyed steady work and a happy marriage. However, once she became a mother, there never seemed to be enough time, sleep, and especially help from her husband. Little irritations became monumental obstacles between them, which led to major battles. Consequently, they turned to expensive couples' therapy to help them regain some peace in life. In a combination of memoir and advice that can be found in most couples' therapy self-help books, Dunn provides an inside look at her own vexing issues and the solutions she and her husband used to prevent them from appearing in divorce court. They struggled with age-old battles fought between men and women—e.g., frequency of sex, who does more housework, who should get up with the child in the middle of the night, why women need to have a clean house, why men need more alone time, and many more. What Dunn learned via therapy, talks with other parents, and research was that there is no perfect solution to the many dynamics that surface once couples become parents. But by using time-tested techniques, she and her husband learned to listen, show empathy, and adjust so that their former status as a happy couple could safely and peacefully morph into a happy family. Readers familiar with Dunn's honest and humorous writing will appreciate the behind-the-scenes look at her own semi-messy family life, and those who need guidance through the rough spots can glean advice while being entertained—all without spending lots of money on couples’ therapy.
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after the birth of their child.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-26710-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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