Sage words, but tough love, for mothers and fathers.
A guide to better parenting through self-assessment.
Chosak is a mother of three with a doctorate in psychology, and a licensed psychotherapist specializing in mother-daughter relationships. Her debut draws on these experiences, as well as the work of psychologist Erik Erikson, therapist Virginia Satir, and others, to present various “styles” of parenting, defined as “typical ways of interacting with your child, especially when you are under stress.” The book begins with general concepts in family psychology, which underpin the whole book. Chosak looks at Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, how parenting norms are passed down through generations, and how notions of unconditional love, bonding, boundaries, and letting go influence parenting. Much of this material can be found in other parenting and psychology books, but the short chapters, clear writing, and abundant examples here make Chosak’s a valuable reference. The majority of the work is devoted to a comprehensive “Parenting Styles Inventory”—20 chapters outlining 20 different styles. For each, the author describes its effects on children and provides anecdotes; offers a rating scale to help readers recognize the style in themselves, their spouses, and their parents; and delivers helpful tips for strengthening or curtailing behaviors. Most of the styles are “seemingly dysfunctional,” such as those of the critical, smothering, helpless, jealous, or user parent. But, with some exceptions, such as abusive parenting, which is “never warranted,” Chosak urges readers to aim for objectivity, yet also remain compassionate in their assessments of themselves. She clearly believes that all parents have the best intentions and that they all, on occasion, fall into several of these styles. Indeed, most parents will find mirrors of themselves, as well as good advice, throughout these chapters. But although compassion is a reassuring goal, objectivity can be difficult to achieve. Chosak deliberately presents “extreme examples” of each style, which are meant to be illustrative but may be too stark to allow for genuine self-evaluation. The laissez-faire, for instance, as described here, “seems not to care at all about her child,” while the user parent is said to see “her child as a pawn.” Although Chosak acknowledges that “the biggest challenge will be honesty,” ticking such boxes may be more alarming than some readers bargain for.
Sage words, but tough love, for mothers and fathers.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62287-959-5
Page Count: 188
Publisher: First Edition Design Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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