Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children [Paperback]

Ann Hulbert (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 13, 2004

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, millions of anxious parents have turned to child-rearing manuals for reassurance. Instead, however, they have often found yet more cause for worry. In this rich social history, Ann Hulbert analyzes one hundred years of shifting trends in advice and discovers an ongoing battle between two main approaches: a “child-centered” focus on warmly encouraging development versus a sterner “parent-centered” emphasis on instilling discipline. She examines how pediatrics, psychology, and neuroscience have fueled the debates but failed to offer definitive answers. And she delves into the highly relevant and often turbulent personal lives of the popular advice-givers, from L. Emmett Holt and Arnold Gesell to Bruno Bettelheim and Benjamin Spock to the prominent (and ever conflicting) experts of today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rather than a social history of how Americans have raised their children, Hulbert (The Interior Castle: The Art and Life of Jean Stafford) offers an intellectual history of how children and parents have been studied in modern America. Here is the story of how Drs. Hall and Holt begat Drs. Gesell and Watson, who begat Dr. Spock and even Dr. Seuss, and how they in turn spawned an entire mini-industry of parenting experts. In spite of changes in terms or variations in thematic concerns, each generation of "experts" has been consistently bipolar, Hulbert finds: the "hard," parent-centered theorists fond of authority and discipline versus the "soft," child-centered theorists preaching love, bonding and liberty. With a flair for wordplay (paraphrasing Gesell's advice to parents to "walk-and speak-ever so softly, and carry a big chart") and a taste for irony (almost all the experts suffered from "mother's boy syndrome"), Hulbert documents the upbringings of the experts themselves, the fluctuations in their advice and the details of their downfalls. While few of these experts were as scientific as they claimed, they probably have managed to further parents' understanding of child development somewhat, admits Hulbert. The irony here-or perhaps it's a saving grace-is that parents, while eager for advice, rarely seem to have used it. This provocative and informative study is a model of lay scholarship. 15 photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Why a century of advice has failed.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Edition edition (April 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375701222
• ISBN-13: 978-0375701221
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #348,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Centered on the experts, not the advise or children February 1, 2004

By Suzanne Amara VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Perhaps my very mixed feelings about this book came from unmet expectations. I thought it would be a book about the history of the actual advise given American parents---how advise about such issues as toilet training, sleep and eating have changed over the years, and how this affected parents. However, the book was actually much more about the experts themselves---THEIR childhoods, education, marital problems, academic careers, etc. This might be interesting to some, but it wasn't to me for the most part. The book had a feel of an insider sort of expose---written for those in the academic world. Children were mentioned very little, except if they happened to be the children of the experts themselves. There was much delving into the psychological history of each expert, but I found that at times I had a very vague idea what the experts actually advised! For example, Hall, an early expert, had his life opened for scrutiny, but I would be hard pressed to explain what his child care views were. The writing was scholary and confident, but in no way personal---the author's children or her own views are not mentioned. So I guess I would just advice that you know what you want to read about before buying this book---It might be just what you are looking for, but it might be far from what you are looking for.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Can Parenting Experts Offer Us More Than Confusion? June 13, 2003

By Michael Gorsline, MA

Format:Hardcover

After about 3 minutes of hearing Hulbert talk about the history of parenting advice this century on NPR, I knew I needed this book. I am in a peculiar position as a Parent Coach/Instructor and as a skeptic. Among other things I teach a very specific approach to parenting based on Love and Logic (See my review of Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood). Yet while I teach a specific approach to helping parents make their lives a bit easier, I am also a skeptic at heart and therefore strive to examine all approaches to parenting with a critical eye, allowing the evidence to point where it may.

With painstaking detail and with considerable wit, Hulbert takes us through the century and helps us to see that parents have been anxious about how their kids would turn out for decades. She also shows that they frequently turn to the experts for guidance; experts who have an annoying habit of contradicting one another. Throughout the centry there has always been a "hard" approach to parenting advocated as well as a "soft" approach advocated usually by two separate experts. Many experts have, and continue to make exaggerated claims about the results of taking their advice. James Watson the famous behaviorist was the paragon of this sort of wild claim, deciding based on a few experiments with white furry things and a scared infant that he knew the secrets to take any sort of child and raise them for a career of his selection and with the character of his choice.

A century later, much is the same though there are some important differences. We continue to have an array of voices with a good deal of overlap as well as with a number of contradictions. The difference now perhaps is that there are approaches all along the continuum from soft to hard, rather than one or two at either end. Hulbert implies that all the contradicitons make it unlikely that anyone has a corner on the "correct" approach. Her NPR interview got at the practical and important point for parents at the how to bookshelf. Parents are wise to pick from among techniques offered by approaches that resonate with their core values. My take on the situation, since I am a therapist by trade, is that parenting experts are much like psychotherapy approaches. The research is clear that no one approach is heads and shoulders above others concerning measurable outcomes for therapy. However, it is clear that for people suffering from anxiety and depression, for example, therapy is certainly better than no treatment. My guess is that the results are the same with parenting. I suspect that most people taking a well organized parenting class do better than people with the same intitial skill level taking no class. I further would recommend that people pick a style that teaches mutual respect. Another key is an approach that is practical enough to teach parents how to set, healthy, reasonable limits in a way that is loving. Most people soon tire of being in the company of a child who runs the house and who is very tuned in to their own feelings and needs, but who lack the balance of knowing how to be respectful of others.

Hulbert makes superb work of bringing big parenting experts of the past century to life and letting us in on some of the details that they might have preferred not be shared openly. I found it particularly helpful to read up on Spock, as we frequently hear his name as a common cultural reference, but I like most people wasn't familiar with the fascinating and sweeping trajectory that his advice and his career took. Hulbert knows her stuff. It would be wonderful to have a conversation with her about this history of parenting experts and how they measure up to the research, including the significant blows that Judith Harris dealt developmental psycholgy by being the first to make a widely publicized stink about the lack of controls for the role genetics, and the and the failure to account for kids having effects on adults' parenting in The Nurture Assumption (another must read for those serious about understanding what we know about parenting styles). I suspect I won't get a chance at the conversation with Hulbert, but this book was a superb second best.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Raising America May 30, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

We have all been told how to feed a baby (on demand -- or by rigid schedule); how to ensure that an infant sleeps (let 'em cry it out -- or let the the baby sleep in your bed); how to discipline toddlers (distract them -- or put them in time out); and how to talk with and listen to our children. If you've ever asked "Where are these `experts' coming from?" read Ann Hulbert's Raising America.
Hulbert provides interesting biographical anecedotes about the prominent child-rearing theorists of this century and places them in the social and political climate of their time. Her pen is wise, graceful and truly humorous.
While I hesitate to give advice -- in this century inundated with it -- I recommend that you put aside for a while Spock, Brazelton, Leach and Greenspan. Instead, settle down with Raising America -- a thoroughly information-packed, thought-provoking read.