The Assault on Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines the Family [Paperback]

Dana Mack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2000

The Assault on Parenthood grapples with a disturbing paradox: the very institutions that are supposed to be helping parents in the difficult enterprise of child rearing are often infected with pronounced anti-family views. Despite the attempt by politicians and social theorists alike to posture as being on the side of family values, Dana Mack argues, we live in a culture that is increasingly family-unfriendly and indeed subtly undermines the efforts of parents when they are working harder than ever to raise their children properly.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Mack invaluably summarizes one huge current of contemporary dissent. Many middle-class and working-poor U.S. parents feel that the schools, the courts, and the welfare system are alienating them from their kids. Those institutions, they say, use such things as sex education, counseling, and mainstreaming (of special needs children into regular classrooms) to turn kids into acquiescent consumers in a homogenized commercial culture, and they will forcibly separate children from their parents--on trumped-up abuse charges or because a household falls below an arbitrary standard of material comfort--to achieve that end. (And often, they don't achieve it, nurturing young sociopaths instead.) This perspective may sound paranoid, but Mack musters history, research, and analysis, as well as the inevitable horror stories, to make it ring with credibility and seriousness. She also discusses the rising "familist" counterculture evidenced by such burgeoning phenomena as home schooling and couples giving up two-income households so that one of the adults can be a full-time parent, and, although she concedes that few disaffected parents expect any help from government, presents "seven pro-family proposals in search of political courage." Far surpassing all the banter about "family values," this is current-issues writing at its best. Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Return parenting to parents. That's the message of this thoughtful and challenging attack on the ``nanny state.'' Liberal and conservative ideologues alike will flinch as Mack, a scholar at the Institute for American Values and a parent, variously assails and defends government and intellectuals for their roles in reshaping the family. Mack talked to 250 parents across the country (mostly married and in the middle-income bracket). She also combed the literature for the views of psychiatrists, educators, politicians, community activists, and other researchers concerned with child development. The gist of her message is that academics and institutions, beginning a century ago but increasingly in the past three decades, have usurped the parental role in shaping children's characters and values--and it isn't working. According to Mack, among the company of villains are psychotherapists like Susan Forward and Alice Miller, who have framed parents as ``toxic'' and ``narcissistic''; educators, who have taken on the job of distributing condoms in lieu of reinforcing parental values about sex; and lawyers and judges, who tout children's rights over parental rights. The press and the entertainment industry also come in for criticism, as does an economy that forces both parents into the workplace and provides few safety nets. Parents, says the author, are finally fighting back by schooling their children at home and by seeking changes in the workplace, pressuring for flextime, for home-based work, and for the right to bring babies to the office. The author offers seven actions government can take to ``regain the trust of parents,'' among them tax relief and parental leave. Mack is a little behind the wave--even the schools now acknowledge that parental involvement is critical to academic success--and her views sometimes seem simply to echo those of the families she interviewed. Nonetheless, she does children and harried parents a service by assembling in one volume vivid accounts of the varied political and social forces that are damaging families today. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books (February 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893554112
• ISBN-13: 978-1893554115
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,196,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rages against the tyranny of "experts", August 10, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Assault on Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines the Family (Paperback)

Now in paperback with a new preface by the author, The Assault On Parenthood is a stinging, thought-provoking wake-up call with regard to the erosion of parental authority and family intimacy in today's modern culture. Based on interviews with parents from all tiers of society, The Assault On Parenthood rages against the tyranny of "experts" in psychology, education, law, and social science that undermine parental authority. The Assault On Parenthood is a "must" for anyone who is concerned about where American families are headed in contemporary times and in the future.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our government interfers with our raising of our children, June 5, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Assault On Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines the Family (Hardcover)

Years from now this book will be remembered as the turning point in the fight to establish the right of American parents to raise their children without the unnecessary interference of the state. Ms. Mack is not the first to have written on the various subjects in her book, but she has synthesized the information more effectively, and meticulously documented her facts with many pages of footnotes. The subject is complex, and as a result the book is not a fast read, but it may change your outlook on the way our government wants you to raise your children

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary, April 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Assault On Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines the Family (Hardcover)

I was actually frightened (for my child) and disgusted by the time I finished this book. This book made it very clear to me how our children are being mis-educated and how parents are being undermined in our country today. The idea that educators and lawmakers are testing their theories on our children was infuriating. Ms. Mack has done a commendable job on pulling it all together, even if I don't agree with her that the government can provide solutions to these problems.