Act Natural

A Cultural History of Misadventures in Parenting

De: Jennifer Traig

Narrado por: Emily Woo Zeller

From a distinctive, inimitable voice, a wickedly funny and fascinating romp through the strange and often contradictory history of Western parenting.

Why do we read our kids fairy tales about homicidal step-parents? How did helicopter parenting develop if it used to be perfectly socially acceptable to abandon your children? Why do we encourage our babies to crawl if crawling won’t help them learn to walk?

These are just some of the questions that came to Jennifer Traig when - exhausted, frazzled, and at sea after the birth of her two children - she began to interrogate the traditional parenting advice she’d been conditioned to accept at face value. The result is Act Natural, a hilarious and deft dissection of the history of Western parenting, authored with the signature biting wit and deep insights for which Traig has become known.

Moving from ancient Rome to Puritan New England to the Dr. Spock craze of mid-century America, Traig cheerfully explores historic and present-day parenting techniques ranging from the misguided, to the nonsensical, to the truly horrifying. Be it childbirth, breastfeeding, or the ways in which we teach children how to sleep, walk, eat, and talk, she leaves no stone unturned in her quest for answers: Have our techniques actually evolved into something better? Or are we still just scrambling in the dark?

©2019 Jennifer Traig (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers

Excellent writing and narration!

I was so impressed with this audio book. The author is a really good writer with a lot of humor thrown in. The narrator did such a good job of capturing what I imagine the author's intended tone to be for things like sarcasm and humorous asides. The content is also fascinating and in some cases a bit cringe-worthy but in the best way. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book and highly recommend!

funny and informative

Wonderful and a total page turner! I felt better about myself as a parent after reading this book, it really helped me understand the relativism of beliefs/shoulds and shouldn'ts throughout time.

There's an impressive 283 sources at the end of the book, it was incredibly well researched and delivered. The afterwards mentioned that it took the author five years of gathering information to write it.

A mesmerizing historical account

I really enjoyed the book and the voice. At no point I lost my interest in it. Would recommend to anyone regardless if you have children, as a glimpse into how children (primarily European) were raised throughout the history.

Good Info/ Too much irrelevant man hate.

book had a lot of good historical info in it but found myself asking why is the hate towards men relevant to the subject matter of the book. There was a few points that I almost stop listening but was able to get through it.