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 enlarge | Author: Pamela Paul
Publisher: Times Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $11.00
You Save: $14.00 (56%)
New (32) Used (9) from $10.96
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 51848
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0805082492
Dewey Decimal Number: 649.1220284
EAN: 9780805082494
ASIN: 0805082492
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-10 of 10 | | « PREV | | |
 This book is such a great topic, too bad it fell short. Not as good as it could have been! April 22, 2008
6 out of 13 found this review helpful
After the first few pages the author lost her outrage and personal voice.
Without the author using a more personal voice it reads like she just fell into line with all the consumerism through out the book. Then it starts to read like a bureau of statistics or consumer reports brochure warning how not to let advertising and marketing dupe you into being a foolish consumer driven parent. Which has it's value for waking up some parents, but was a DULL read and led me nowhere.
With such a brilliant topic ripe for peeling back to shake up this generation of parents, the book was flat! I can not figure out why and how Ms. Paul missed the mark.
Is her own voice as a mother/ author too timid or is she just warning us, and she is not avoiding falling into line with what the marketers want and continues to raise her children as consumers.
I purchased this book full price at my local Barnes and Noble because of Dr Elkinds blurb on the back, he is a guru from the education world supporting and educatiing parents who are unwilling to follow nonsensical parenting fads (we are in the middle of too many).
Everyone should read Dr Elkind's books, my favorite that supported following my intuition about raising children was "Miseducation: PRESCHOOLERS AT RISK" it's a bit old, but absolutely relevant for what is happening today.
Another brilliant book for parents that goes against the grain of mainstream parenting fads is by Dorothy Briggs, "Your Child's Self Esteem" it will help you get off the fast track of parental and child consumerism.
 A Must Read! April 20, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
For anyone who has kids, is thinking about having kids, or has even watched friends and relatives going through the pressure of parenting, this is a fascinating read. I think it is particularly important for new parents overwhelmed by the marketing of "must have" baby products. Pamela Paul shows us that not only are these products not "must haves", but many are actually doing damage to our children's creativity and ability to relate to others.
Aha! Moment for Grandma April 18, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Now i get it! This book is a must-read for grandparents who have been observing strange things going on in the world of parenting. Observation alone can be confusing and even demoralizing. This book has allowed me to understand the roots of seemingly bizarre, ever well meaning, definitely extravagant, behavior in my children's generation.
The easiest explanation for the seemingly ubiquitous hysteria of parents of young children is that they have all lost their minds....but now I get it! This book is a wonderful, intelligent examination of the pressures and temptations that distort good sense and lead normally sane and smart people to reach into their pocketbooks for all kinds of expensive goods and services that never existed before or were free or relatively cheap. Yikes.
If insight can help young parents resist French lessons for their fetuses or thousand dollar strollers, this book is the perfect gift to get into their hands, quickly, before the baby is born, while they have time to read it. For the grandparents, also a perfect book, because understanding is always a good thing.
Right on the money! April 5, 2008
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
This book finally puts into words what I (and so many others) have been thinking. When did having a baby necessitate a seemingly endless shopping list of 'must buy' consumer goods? And it doesn't stop after infancy. Rather the pressure to over-educate, over-stimulate, and over-indulge in some communities seems to ramp up apace with a child's growth chart. Paul puts all this spending in perspective and offers some context to what has become a multi-million dollar industry: pampering the under 5's. When there are children starving around the world, such excess seems all the more out of whack. Pamela Paul gives you the facts in an anecdote-filled, interesting and comprehensive way. It's up to you to come to your own conclusions. The best kind of zeitgeist journalism.
You don't need an $800 stroller. April 2, 2008
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
Do they have bugaboo strollers where you live? They've hit New York like an invasion of cockroaches -- $800 cockroaches in artfully named colors like "mocha" and "timbre". Ten years ago you couldn't have spent $800 on a stroller if you had tried, but by 2005 or 2006 they had become the norm in many communities.
This book tackles the question of how this happened. Why do parents think that they need an $800 stroller? Why do they think their kids should watch "Baby Einstein" videos? Does the baby really need $80 face cream? Bugaboo strollers are treated in particular detail, with their initial marketing plan and the response by consumers dissected in fascinating detail.
My favorite chapters talked about the companies that supply this stuff -- from entrepreneurs (especially moms) who had a good idea and are looking to turn it into a profit, to the most cynical and crass corporate marketing machines. Many of the products discussed in the book may harm children, but the companies that sell them spend millions of dollars convincing parents that their children will be somehow at risk without them.
Modern society has weakened the extended families and tight-knit communities that once played an important role in the raising of children. Many parents have no good source for advice about the baby that is about to arrive, or has just arrived. Corporations have gleefully filled the void, and neither the kids nor the parents benefit from this.
To be clear -- this book is even-handed, and where Paul sees value in a good or service, she gives detailed credit to the people responsible. Her discussions of the bad stuff are, for me anyway, more fun to read.
I loved the book. About the only thing I wanted more of was the discussion of "kids as fashion items," where toddlers are dressed in expensive clothes and paraded about by egocentric parents. I still do not understand why people do such things.
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