Customer Reviews

A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting

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

 

 

Invasive parenting is a thought provoking topic that, as a parent, I wanted to explore. I willingly bought into Marano's thesis that "hothouse" parenting is prevalent and problematic. But recurring problems plagued Marano's arguments throughout the book and turned this believer into a skeptic.

Let me first say that this book makes a lot of sensational claims that, to be credible, must be backed-up with either statistics or expert opinion. And that's where Marano's treatise begins to struggle.

Ms. Marano saturates most of her chapters with hyperbole dressed as fact. By chapter 8, she's making claims that seem fantastic beyond belief. After a few dozen lines like, "By all accounts, psychological distress is rampant on college campuses," you start wondering if it's really as bad as she claims or if Marano is exaggerating because she believes we won't respond to her fire unless it's a 4-alarmer. She throws out what seem to be big numbers, but seldom contrasts them with numbers from 20, 30 or 40 years ago, so it's hard to assess trends (though Marano assures us that things are much worse today than ever before).

So to settle the question, you have to appeal to her evidence, which is too often thin and/or suspect. Marano has an affinity for the anecdotal: "I have talked to counselors and directors of campus counseling centers across the country. From every single one I heard horror stories of sexual and psychological abuse." Not that I don't believe Ms. Marano, but a serious claim like that needs a foundation--names, numbers, specific examples--and she often provides none.

To be sure, the book has a decent sized bibliography, but it's chuck-full of a small handful of fellow psychologists that she cites over and over. Worse yet, she frequently cites herself as an evidential reference! Yikes! For example, in the "by all accounts" line I quoted above, she only cites two accounts, one of which is an article that she wrote for a magazine. She even references her writing (sans page numbers) in Nation of Wimps. That's right, the book cites itself in it's own bibliography. Unbelievable! If the book is its own evidence, why bother with a bibliography? Don't get me wrong, home cooking is good...when it's food.

I really wanted to get behind this book, but it just doesn't pass the smell test. I think she's got some good points around an important, timely topic (and some good suggestions in the last chapter), for which I'll give her 3 stars. But after reading her book, I'm convinced that Marano went for effect over facts. The sensationalism and suspect evidence were too much for me.

As a university student affairs administrator for 38 years, I have observed generational changes over the years and the change, over about the past decade, in the role and involvement of parents. In "A Nation of Wimps," Hara Marano has produced an extraordinary analysis of the phenomenon of the invasive parent and how that parent has marched through the K-12 halls, over the walls of college ivy, and on into the job interview and orientation rooms. This book is filled with remarkable insight, skillful analysis, illustrative quotes, and poignant examples. Marano has convincingly argued a case for the "benefits of the skinned knee" and the pitfalls of the helicopter, stealth bomber, and snowplow parent. This book is must reading for all who care about the positive development and growth of children and the generations to come.

The major theme that wealthier children are weakened by overprotection is compelling, but the idea is belabored to full out the 264 pages. That said, there are more hits than misses. Higher income parents would be well served by reading and taking seriously the idea that too much sheltering of children makes them fragile and unable to face adult life. Ms Marano has very solid critiques of perfectionism and the parental quest for disability status for their children. I have taught public schools and have seen how much damage has been done by the disability industry: damage to children, schools and society. There are fine discussions of real versus imagined risk in chapter 4, on the damage done by cell phones in chapter 9 and on the need for stress in chapter 10. On the miss side, chapter 5 goes overboard on the benefit of unsupervised play, chapter 8 sounds strident alarms about college life as if there weren't problems in the 60s when I was there, and the school described in chapter 12 would only convince people who have never taught school.

Like her first book "Why Doesn't Anybody Like Me" this book contains many emphatic statements listed as fact which have little to no research backing them. While the premise is interesting and Ms. Marano may in fact have significant points to make they are lost in the face of her overwhelming use of anecdotes over science.

The author is combative and singles out--what she perceives to be "smothering"--parents as the source of all that is wrong with the world.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Is it a bad idea to smother your child? Yes. Is the "helicopter parent" the only source of trouble in today's world? Hardly.

Also, her glaring generalizations about home schooling parents and their children are an insult even to those of below-average intelligence.

There are many loving and wonderful families who choose to educate their children at home through tutoring, distance learning, and/or through teaching them on their own. Yes, some may be control-freaks, but it is unfair to paint an entire group of people with that brush simply because you, the author, personally, prefer another method.

If Aristotle was correct regarding the notion that virtue lies between the extremes, then this sensationalist book falls short of being virtuous on a variety of levels. But, if you are a reasonable adult, it is easy to guess that much from the title alone.

Estroff-Marano's book belongs in the dustbin with the rest of the rubbish. It is banal, it is repetative, and it does very little (if anything at all) to solve any current societal/parenting problems in a productive manner.

I was initially drawn to this book based on the blurb on the cover. While I agree with the author that there are an increasing number of children in the US similiar to those she profiles in her book, the author sums up the bulk of her research and general thoughts on this topic in the first chapter. The remaining chapters are a move fleshed out version of chapter one. Several times I felt that the sentences I was reading were verbatim the ones set out in the first chapter! I was looking for a bit more depth.
The author concludes with a chapter on what parents can and should do to prevent raising their children in this manner. The recommendations are not anything that I (or most readers) would not have guessed before picking up the book. If you are interested in this book, read the first and last chapters and you won't have missed anything from the chapters in between.

Badly overwritten, seems like an article padded out to book length. The examples the author uses are all based on the coasts and it doesn't address people and children in the midwest at all. There is a lot of babble about getting into Harvard or other Ivy League schools, when the average person I know can't afford schools like that for their children. I think she had a great premise, but not nearly enough for the book. I'm firmly in the lower middle class, and I couldn't relate to much of what she said about parenting at all.

The first time I had an inkling that something was amiss was about 8 years ago when I noticed that a young employee of mine was constantly washing his hands with some kind of clear gel. At that point I had never seen or heard of anti-bacterials but this 20 year old young man seemed obsessed with washing his hands multiple times a day. Likewise, I have observed in recent years that children simply don't seem to play outside much anymore. When was the last time you spotted a group of kids playing tag or even a simple game of catch? When children do play it seems it always has to be very structured and organized with lots of adults around to supervise. Hara Estroff Marano is an award-winning writer and editor-at-large for "Psychology Today". She has observed these phenomenon and a whole host of other troubling behaviors in both our young people and their parents that according to her are making us "A Nation of Wimps". This is a must read for parents, grandparents, educators and anyone else interested in the future of our kids.

Throughout the pages of "A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting" Hara Estroff Marano points to any number of disturbing trends that she attributes to overparenting. Marano laments that the value of "play" for our younger children has been largely trivialized and replaced by more structured achievement oriented activities. I was quite surprised and distressed to learn that in many kindergardens and elementary schools around the nation recess has been completely eliminated! What is going on here? And as these children get older, Marano found that many parents are stoking the fires of fear among their offspring overstating the dangers of everything from germs to pedophiles. As a result, these children become extremely risk averse and find it more difficult to make friends, foster relationships with other adults and make decisions. In addition, as these children move into their teens and early 20's they are much more prone to any number of maladies including depression and anorexia nervosa. Marano also points to a multitude of examples of anxious parents intervening on behalf of their kids. And then there is the web-based service known as Zangle. Check it out. It seems that some parents will stop at nothing to monitor and manage their childrens activities. Very sad! These parents may mean well but their determination to ensure that their children do not encounter failure or setbacks or pain of any kind only serves to stifle the emotional growth of these youngsters. As a result, many are left totally unprepared to deal with the challenges and complexities of adult life. Marano goes on to describe some of the consequences of the way we have been raising our kids. Employers complain that an increasingly large percentage of young people are unable to engage in critical thinking and lack problem solving skills. Meanwhile, many of these kids are totally lacking in leadership skills and have an extremely tough time making decisions and forging meaningful relationships.

"A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting" is must reading for every parent. In the final chapter of the book Hara Estroff Marano offers a dozen practical suggestions for parents who are interested in avoiding many of the mistakes that parents seem to have been making in recent years. In the end some might diagree with her approach but the ideas contained within this book are well worth considering. As far as I am concerned Marano has identified some serious issues and most of her solutions make perfect sense to me. Highly recommended!

I am a licensed, practicing Psychologist and this book provides an exhaustive, and much-needed account of a serious problem that I have witnessed within many contemporary families. Hara Marano describes the evolution of the "helicopter parent" to the "snowplow parent" - that is, the new breed of parent that attempts to provide a good life for their children by removing all obstacles to happiness from their children's lives. With incisive wisdom and a broad and sophisticated grasp of psychological theory and research, the author connects the dots and displays a type of meta-perspective that is extremely rare and valuable. Do not be turned off by the title - if you are a parent of what those in the Psychology business might refer to as a "strong willed child" or a a "boomerang" adult-child, this book might just change your life.

I am surprised that the 6 reviewers gave this book either 4 or a 5 stars. I couldn't finish Chapter 4. I give her 2 stars because she tries to address a thought provoking topic, but the book is prone to extreme generalizations and speculation based on the few chapters that I read. For example "...home schooling deprives children of any chance to breathe, of opportunities to discover themselves on their own and to escape from parental vigilance, parental bias, or parental ignorance." I don't home school my kids, but this statement is laughable.

As for the online website that allows parents to "keep an obsessive eye on their kids throughout the school day.." and "..spend hours `zangling' their kids and comparing the results..", this is another example of extreme generalization. Our school system uses this Web site and there isn't enough information on it to spend hours `zangling'. What the author didn't mention is that the kids can logon with their own password and see their grades, what they ate, etc. My 12 year old was checking her grades one time and she noticed that she had zeros on some assignments that she was sure she had turned in awhile ago. So what did she do--she talked to the teacher and found out that the teacher had not uploaded all the scores yet. I was proud of her for talking to the teacher on her own (I surely wasn't going to do it for her).

As for the Conclusion section which gives tips on what parents can do, this section is only informative if this is the only book you ever read on parenting.