What exactly is a wanted child? How does that child weigh against the pull of career and good times? How might one justify a decision to remain "child-free"? As more and more women in the developed world choose to remain childless, father and son Laurie and Matthew Taylor talk to parents, prospective parents and the child-free in an attempt to understand the demographic crisis - the growing sense in today's society that there is no longer any point in having children. Consistenly provocative, "What Are Our Children For?" is a book for our time - as much a study of the state that parenting is in as an intimate dialogue between father and son, seeking to resolve their very different attitudes to family life.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Steven White
Format:Hardcover
In their debut book, father and son Laurie and Matthew Taylor, ask brave new questions to one of the oldest questions of all: what are children for? Most parents' initial reaction may be one of incredulity - mine was. However, the more we think about it, the harder it becomes to answer. Why do we have children, at the cost to our personal lives, social lives (not to mention about £20,000). And if the question is so obvious, why are fewer of us having children and at a later age than before? And why do we complain about the problems caused by the baby-boom of the 1960s?
The authors bring a fresh, and sometimes witty, approach to an important subject. Their backgrounds in areas of public policy mean that they can bring authority and weight to an area that would traditionally be dismissed by the likes of The Guardian or laughed at by the Daily Mail.
If you can offer a more convincing rationale for why you had children, then I will give you the £50 prize for reviewers. Laurie and Matthew Taylor have towered above the soft-soap approach of many of their rivals. By the end of the book, you will be phoning the publishers, demanding that they commission another seminal work from this pair.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Lyra Lilly
Format:Hardcover
As a 30 something woman who has decided not to have children, i picked this up in the hope it would help me provide rational arguments to those people who feel the urge to ask me why i don't want children.
Laurie and Matthew Taylor format the book in the way of a dialogue about parenthood, and being father and son i think they have a very strong platform on which to address this subject.
It is not a self help book by any means, but it could help you seek out an argument from both sides of the fence, describing the two tribes that can form between Parents and the Child Free. The natural and manufactured animosity that can build up and looks at how we can each address these issues from our personal perspectives.
Made me think long and hard and try and understand the point of view of those who wish to procreate and those of us who don't
Something for everyone, a jolly good read
Laurie and Matthew Taylor format the book in the way of a dialogue about parenthood, and being father and son i think they have a very strong platform on which to address this subject.
It is not a self help book by any means, but it could help you seek out an argument from both sides of the fence, describing the two tribes that can form between Parents and the Child Free. The natural and manufactured animosity that can build up and looks at how we can each address these issues from our personal perspectives.
Made me think long and hard and try and understand the point of view of those who wish to procreate and those of us who don't
Something for everyone, a jolly good read
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Mr. Steve
Format:Hardcover
Having read the book, I am of the opinion that sociologists aren't perhaps the best placed to answer the question "What are children for?"
I enjoyed the well-documented divide between parents and the childless, but ultimately found the book neither enlightening nor polemical. Much rehashes what we already know: parental anxieties, the financial cost of childrearing, the rise in unwanted childlessness, comsumerism, social atomisation and family breakdown. That humans continue to reproduce is 'explained' not just by the socioeconomic factors outlined here, but also in the shared adult investments and expectations of heterosexual relationships, the therapeutic meaning ascribed to caregiving and the aspiration to make up for personal deprivations, etc.
I would have welcomed a more psychological account of why we do or don't become parents. I would have liked more personal reflections too: the discussions between father and son are by far the best thing about this book.
I enjoyed the well-documented divide between parents and the childless, but ultimately found the book neither enlightening nor polemical. Much rehashes what we already know: parental anxieties, the financial cost of childrearing, the rise in unwanted childlessness, comsumerism, social atomisation and family breakdown. That humans continue to reproduce is 'explained' not just by the socioeconomic factors outlined here, but also in the shared adult investments and expectations of heterosexual relationships, the therapeutic meaning ascribed to caregiving and the aspiration to make up for personal deprivations, etc.
I would have welcomed a more psychological account of why we do or don't become parents. I would have liked more personal reflections too: the discussions between father and son are by far the best thing about this book.
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