Customer Reviews

Dirt is Good for You: True Stories of Surviving Parenthood

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was expecting some really shocking stories about parenting when I read this book's description. But, really, these stories are relatively tame. (Although, a story by Jennifer Baumgardner about letting her friend breastfeed her child did kind of gross me out.) I agree with other reviewers that most of the parents who wrote for this book seemed to make a big deal over nothing. Is it so strange that a person would be disappointed at first by a surprise pregnancy? Or that a parent doesn't use all the proper medical terms for body parts when potty training her young daughter? Further, even when the parents express "wrong" emotions or thoughts, most wrap up their essays with a cheery little "but all's well that ends well" message. Overall, this book was disappointing and even boring. For a more thoughtful, humorous collection of essays on parenting, I would recommend _Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves_.

It isn't often I feel overly critical or snarky toward people writing about parenting. It ain't an easy job and until babies are born with instruction manuals tied around their ankles the phrase "bad parent" can't in good conscience fly from my own lips. But when a group of self-proclaimed "bad parents" come together to contribute to a book of anecdotes about their experiences as moms and dads I expect to be reading something that has humor, a little poking fun at the misjudgements we make as parents and something a little uplifting to remind the reader that the experience of parenting may not be flawless but can make one a better person.

Instead of being uplifting or even encouraging, DIRT IS GOOD FOR YOU, collects tales from what practically reads like the same author over and over and over. Whines about the standards of "normal" parents, groans about being stay-at-home parents and moans about the kids themselves vie for the crown of worst parent ever. But are these parents really that bad? Only in their own minds.

Not every tale is without wit or humor, I found a couple of them to be amusing and even endearing. On the whole though these authors just honestly digusted me. I can only think of one who actually sounded as if they were not some Manhattanite free-lance writer engaging in masturbatory overindulgence of the ego. Where are the real moms and dads? Sure, some of these woes are very real. Fretting over a child who only eats macaroni and cheese or struggling to bond with a newborn are very real, very common issues. But do these make the writers bad parents? Even the woman breastfeeding a child old enough to be lifting her shirt and demanding his 'nah-nahs' isn't so horrid, though I personally found it a bit disturbing.

What furthermore made this collection impossible to like was that in spite of each self-proclaimed example of being a "bad parent", most of them managed to twist it back around into how they were a "good parent" because they let themselves be "bad parents". I do believe it is certainly not wrong for a parent who thinks they are doing something wrong to come to a point where they realize there is no right or wrong way to handle certain issues of parenting. But when the book devolves into nothing but this sort of thing coming from unrelatable figures it just doesn't resonate with your average, everyday parent who might be looking for a good laugh and a reminder that being a parent is a journey, not a destination.

I rarely say this but don't waste your money on this book. Instead, take your bad parent self and your child(ren) out for an ice cream sundae dinner or better yet... be really bad and put the kids to bed and indulge in some trashy reality TV about really scary parents (Toddlers & Tiaras anyone?), have a glass of wine (ow two) and congratulate yourself on knowing that parenthood isn't about YOUR survival... it's about THEIR survival in spite of us. ;)

Have you ever been trapped in a conversation with a parent who spews endlessly about how their way of parenting is the best? Someone who takes their views to extreme? I had that same feeling when I was reading this book.

Not all chapters are braggy and annoying, but enough are that I didn't enjoy the book. I was expecting lighthearted stories about parenting. That's not what I got out of it.

If I wanted to hear people bragging about not letting kids disrupt their lives or people bragging that they let their kids do whatever they wanted, I'd join another playgroup.

While I found some stories refreshingly honest, I feel that most were exaggerated in an attempt to be different from every other parent out there. As one author put it "We don't celebrate Average Joe or Jane. We're bored with Average. We pity it." Perhaps that's the need many of these parents had for one-upping traditional parenting views.

Parenting can be exciting, scary, frustrating, and stressful--and everything in between. This book tells those stories. And they're told by very good writers who make you want to write all your own stories down for posterity, although you know yours won't turn out nearly as well.

Are some of the stories outrageous? Yes.
Do some of them hit home? Yes.
Are some of them crazy? Yes.
Do some of them sound like you could have written them? Probably.
Should this book be read and enjoyed as a comedic break from parenting? Sure.
Might you glean some helpful thoughts from this book? Sure.
Should this book be taken as advice? No.

I do like that the stories are short--something you can read quickly and easily in between the hundreds of things you have to do as a new parent, being exhausted, and needing a small break.

I would recommend getting this book and sharing it with all your other new mom (or, heck, old mom friends!) because once you read it, there is no reason to keep it (i.e. it's not a reference book or self help book by any stretch of the imagination), so it is a good book to pass around--share the wealth, so-to-speak.

I'm a working mother of two little boys and reading the essays was like going through a fun and hilarious form of therapy. On one hand, it gave me the sense that I'm not the only parent out there who isn't necessarily at home making homemade organic meals every night and sheltering my kids from anything related to a television or wishing with all my might that my kids would just stop talking sometimes. On the other hand, I also found myself saying, "well at least I didn't do _that_ to my kids!", so no matter what the essay was about, it just made me feel good.

These essays are funny, short, well-written and heart-felt, on topics that most parents won't cop to, like "To Hell with Baby-Proofing", "I Didn't Fall in Love with My Baby the First Minute - or the First Month" and "I Cross-Nursed with my Friend". There are an endless supply of laughs, disbelief as well as support and camaraderie for parents who may wonder whether they are doing a good job.

This book is going to be my gift to new parents, because I found it not only more entertaining, but also potentially more helpful than "real" parenting books as we all struggle to figure out how to raise good kids.

This book is intended for "urban, hipster" parents, which I've concluded is code for "since we pay $2500 a month for a 4th floor 800 square-foot walkup, we think we're better than people who live in ranch homes and shop at Walmart." Although the essays are by different authors, the tone is remarkably similar throughout--the unbearable smugness just won't let up. Imagine the kids from high school who thought they were the coolest because they claimed to like bands that no one else had ever heard of. Okay, now imagine those kids raising kids, and telling you that since what they do goes "against the grain," it's totally hip. Annoying doesn't even begin to cover it.

Generically, each essay says about the same thing: I'm a bad parent because I do x, but I'm not really a bad parent because it's actually a good idea to breast-feed a 17-month old, demand a present from your husband just for giving birth, not use a baby monitor, warm your sons clothes in the dryer before they get dressed in the morning; not buy your kids toys; give your kid a pacifier; despise other new moms; yell at your kids; overspend on birthday parties; ad nauseum. I'm pretty sure every parent has had a moment that wouldn't land them on the cover of Parenting magazine; it's just that most of us don't turn these mis-steps into virtues.

There's an underlying tone of, "Wow, how cool, we are the first people to ever raise kids!" which is completely nonsensical, given that homo sapiens goes back about 200,000 years, and "urban" life at least 10,000. Being the first generation of parents who can pause and rewind live TV doesn't make you any more special than being the first parents to use draft animals or gas lamps. Get back to me when you're really pioneering by raising kids in zero-g or on the moon.

This book is a collection of essays and stories from a website called [...]. While I don't agree with all the essays, many of them point out the problems society has inherited with the present parenting style of positive reinforcement, lax discipline, over-protectiveness and over-achieving.

There is also the collision of a legal system intent on protecting babies from harm by requiring all sorts of seats and harnesses and the natural system of simply popping the kid under the breast to suckle. Some of the stories are outright funny--like the woman who had to contort herself over the baby carrier in order to breastfeed her three-month old in the middle of a traffic jam.

Most of the essays concern pregnancy through the pre-school years. There was only one, by Meg Wolitzer (the only name I recognized among all these accomplished writers) that dealt with older children. Or rather it dealt with how mommies could return to the "real" grown-up world after their kids reach the age of some independence.

Every counter revolution starts somewhere. As an outsider (I'm a new grandma, not a new mom) I can say that parenting styles change every twenty years. Breastfeed/bottle feed, let them sleep in your bed,/keep them out of your bedroom, shoes at three months,/barefoot the first year--styles seesaw back and forth. And right now we live in a very child-centered world. Even celebrities show off their children like trophies. And let's face it--child-rearing has been romanticized in America. So no wonder some of the middle-class mommies who inhabit this volume may kick and scream at the more extreme doctrines of modern birthing and parenting.

This book will not give you any helpful hints on how to lull that baby to sleep or enrich his growing years. What it does offer is positive reinforcement for all those negative thoughts that creep into the brain of the harassed mother. Am I depriving my child of a bright future if I don't buy him the latest educational toy, or feed him mashed organic turnips? Do I have the right to hate my three-year olds' bossy friend, or the kid who throws food in the restaurant? Are C-sections really selfish? These are thoughts that many women have but few dare to write out.

In these pages you'll find highly-educated middle class women who feed their kids Big Macs, let them skip school or run naked and refuse to cheer them on at the kindergarten soccer meet. This book would make a great gift to the guilt-ridden mother who wonders why her child isn't the loving, caring, intelligent, creative person she spent so many hours nurturing.

So for anyone who has overdosed on Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil and all those child behaviorists who inhabit TV land and bestseller lists--this book is a good antidote. Take one essay every night before going to sleep.

There's a difference between light-hearted and facile. Guess which one this anthology is? Far from being a collection of high-quality vignettes on parenthood, this book reads like a series of self-congratulatory posts off of some web forum for hyper-self-conscious ironic-t-shirt-sporting city dwellers who just can't get over how outrageous it is that they omg, had a kid! These authors just can't get enough of themselves and want to share their acute specialness with anyone willing to shell out an exorbitant sum to read the tale. More disturbing, the book purports to be about "bad" parenting but it turns out, basically all mortal humans are "bad" by this weird, contrived yuppy standard. So thus it showcases really normal parents making a big deal out of nothing ("I let her wear weird outfits because she's little") right next to people who are oversharing some serious, gross personal failings ("I love my biological kids more than the adopted one, so there!") and people who may even have some kind of psychological neurosis or personality disorder to work through ("I'm jealous of my unborn baby"). You're left with the feeling that so long as a parent is urban, hip, and "educated," they are convinced that every decision they make is wrong, thus everything is ultimately OK because "nobody is perfect." Whether "everything" means simply letting the kids watch cartoons and run around in their pajamas on Saturday morning, or screaming and belittling them, everything falls short of the ridiculously high standard and thus "bad" is somehow the only "good." Craziness.

I feel sorry for the generation of kids growing up under the microscope of the tell-all blogging and publishing culture. And after reading the bios for the contributors to this anthology, I was left wishing to read something by someone who declared him or herself as something other than a "freelance writer," a term which at least in this case seems to translate into "stay at home parent with airs of grandeur."

This is a wonderful and refreshing book, perfect for any parent who wonders what is good and what is bad for your child, in the end you have to trust your own judgment and what you are comfortable with, but it is good to do a bit of research and critical thinking.

Got this book awhile ago and finally got around to reading it. Some of the stories were intriguing but most were not. I do like Babble and read the blog occasionally. Many of these stories just felt like parents were trying to justify odd choices that they made or practices that they weren't really so comfortable with having used. These can be interesting to read but a whole collection is overwhelming. I always enjoy a good parenting book but this one just isn't the best.