Customer Reviews

Beyond One: Growing a Family and Getting a Life

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Jennifer Hull wrote a wonderfully honest book and for that I am thankful. She does have a nanny but no family near bye. As an attachment parenting mom I cringed while reading her account of the "cry it out" approach,felt sad at how much she leaves her children in the care of others, and was shocked at her weaning approach. That being said she was honest, a quality most mothering books lack. She admits to yelling and feeding her kids junk food and the Diet Coke part was such a brutally raw look at her way of thinking. Her story is inspiring not becuase I could agree with or empathize with her choices but becuase she put herself into the equation. She took care of herself and made it a priority. That is what is so different about this book; the mother is part of the mothering. She isn't preachy but is proud of some of her choices another quality I found refreshing. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who can read a memior and appreciate that a person has opened her honest self up for strangers to share and not judge her for what she has said. It is not a parenting book as much as a true story of a real mom with the underlying message being that kids are worth it and having more than one is great!

When I found out I was pregnant with my 2nd child I was very excited. I was also a bit worried. How on earth can I manage with two when I am hardly sleeping with one? What will happen with my beloved first child when a 2nd is demanding my attention? Will I love the 2nd as much?
So, I looked for support and suggestions. I looked through several books and magazines and web sites for ideas and ordered this book, very excited to get some reassurance.
I have never cried so often and been so freaked out in my life. Okay, the book is well written, and if I were not already worried and emotional, I would probably love it, but because these are my very concerns, it is way to hard to read. It is very real, which I am sure some people appreciate, but it is chapter after chapter about how she feels like a failure and how she has so much trouble and how awful it is, then one or two sentences about how it is all okay, until it isn't and then it is all awful again. I guess, for me right now, I don't need so much reality, I need some 'it will really be okay' stuff, so this was NOT the book for me. I may enjoy going back to read it in a few years and laughing about how that stuff happened to me, but right now, I don't need it.
If you are pregnant and looking for some reassurance, this is NOT the book for you.
If you are looking for a good read that may remind you of what it was like 5 years ago when you were going through it, then pick it up and enjoy. For me, it is going back on my bookshelf until I am able to read it with more of a sence of humor.

I picked up this book, hoping that the author would be able to offer some practical advice and anecdotes about having a second baby. While Hull's writing style is engaging and her essays (they're not chapters, by any stretch of the imagination) are fun to read, her position in life is so very different from mine that I struggled to empathize.

She sets herself up as just a regular mom, trying to figure out parenting, balancing work and home, and nurturing a marriage, but she comes across as whiney. She has an au pair and a husband who carries much of the weight of the household (both work from home and split household duties right down the middle). Hull mentions these facts often, and irritates me, another stay-at-home mother and professional writer. Most people can't afford a full time nanny while living in a large house in Miami.

There were funny moments and touching stories, but overall, I felt the same way another reviewer of this book felt... if you don't have those support structures and a six-digit income (and that's most young families!), this book probably isn't for you.

"Beyond One" was the best book I read on the subject of having more than one child. Hull is a smart, funny, insightful writer and her book gave me and my husband (who also read and enjoyed the book) lots to consider. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I found her thoughts on the challenges of shared parenting to be right on and I thought she had some good suggestions on making it work. Hull did a good job recounting personal, real-life situations of her life with two kids that were relevant and reassuring. I've recommended this book to several friends who found it worthwhile and thought provoking. Hull strikes the right balance between realism (parenting is sometimes tough) and optimism (but there are many rewards along the way). I look forward to Hull's next book.

This father of two thought this book was great. While it's easy to read and smart, the book is written for my wife. Still, reading the book, I developed a deeper appreciation for the things my wife experienced after having our second child --and that insight is worth everything. At the same time, the chapters "The Sex Police" and "Dreaming of Divorce" proved to be illuminating. I would strongly recommend the book to parents planning on having a second child (post conception, to be safe) or who have already been so blessed. Jennifer Hull is worth reading.

Makes you feel like you are there....

As a mother contemplating a second baby, I really liked this book because it specifically describes the issues a new addition presents and you can see yourself in the situations described, and figure out how you would feel and how you would handle it.

While most parenting advice books tell you what to do, sort of generically, Hull's narrative approach allows you to prepare for having a second by sharing her family's experience and comparing what you might do to what the author did. By focusing on how a second child affects mom, rather then just the firstborn, the author also covers a lot of territory that the parenting guides miss.

Sometimes in life what you need is help with identifying the questions, so you can figure out the answers for yourself. Reading Beyond One is like having dinner with a girlfriend whose kids are older than yours. You get an intimate view of what might lie ahead from her stories, some good tips and best of all, a chance to think things out for yourself.

Easy/ fast and fun to read because you want to know what happened next, and the vignettes are told with humor (very good for us sometimes-overwhelmed first-time parents).

I've bought three other books on adding a second child to your family, and this is the only one I'd recommend to other people. The others just state the obvious or have unhelpful advice. This one is honest and funny, and manages to convey that it is hard at times, you will get through it, and here are some things that worked for the author. This is the book that I read out loud to my husband. The author had a successful career for years before having kids, and she and her husband both still work. They are also older parents, since Hull had her girls at ages 40 and 42, so issues of 50-50 parenting and work/life balance are a much bigger deal to them than to some other couples. They do have a nanny; that's how they manage to both work. That's something I can't afford, but frankly, once you have two kids, the cost of having a nanny vs. daycare is pretty close, and once you factor in not getting sick as often from the daycare germs, the difference may be null. It does read a little disjointed; as another review pointed out, this is a collection of essays, not a series of ordered chapters.

I have read this book three times and loved it. I first read it when I was pregnant with my second child and wanted to know more of what to expect. I read it again shortly after my second child was born, and again, it was a comfort to read another mom's honest experience. (I was relieved to learn that like me, not all moms enjoy playdates! It's not easy, much less enjoyable, to bring two very young kids and all the children's gear on a day-long outing!) Finally, an honest assessment of things where I had assumed I was somehow inadequate in my struggles. I read the book again recently, now that my second child is almost three years old -- just before I sent the book to a good friend of mine who recently had her second child. On the third read, I uncovered even more things that resonated... this book is a goldmine for the mom looking for a successful mom's truthful insights in the challenges of raising two children.

I just loved this book. It was my touchstone during my first several weeks with my second born and I've recommended it to everyone. Hull is humorous, authentic and brutally honest--not an easy feat for a mother writing about her own parenting. It's refreshing to find writing that bypasses the packaged, saccharine anecdotes about family life found in most parenting magazines and books and instead is full of Real Life: good, bad, ugly, beautiful, ambiguous, messy and hilarious. Single moms have written most of the autobiographical books on parenting (Anne Lamott comes to mind)--for a married reader whose husband also wants an equality-based relationship with shared parenting, Beyond One is also great in terms of validation, 'how to' and not feeling alone in the quest for creating life-giving, holistic family relationships.

"Beyond One: Growing a Family Life and Getting a Life" was a terrific read, and that is saying a lot from a mother of two who has very little time to read anything, let alone a book. I found the book to be a witty and compassionate look at motherhood that left me feeling that I was not alone. Having a second child can seem so isolating at times that it is a real comfort to realize that there are others in your same situation who feel the same love and frustrations towards their children. Not only do I highly recommend this book, I anxiously await the next book Ms. Hull writes!