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Modern Parenting
BOOK FORUM Schuyler W. Henderson,
M.D., M.P.H.
Assistant Editor
Modern Parenting o doubt many parents relate to King Lear’s withering condemnation of childhood ingratitude, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is/To have a thankless child” (King Lear Act I, Scene 2, lines 288–289), although few would otherwise identify Lear as a model for parenting. A lack of gratitude in one’s offspring is nevertheless to be expected, largely because the process of growing up means forgetting one’s parents at key moments. Fortunately, in today’s world, parents can always remind the child of their presence with a timely text, video montage, or, coming in the near future, 3-dimensional holographic conjurations. In fact, introjection soon may no longer be a key way parents figure in their children’s psyches; parents will exist, mostly in handheld form, outside the body. The advantage may be fewer therapists’ bills, but the psychic cost of losing one’s parental object in a taxicab probably cannot be measured. For our first review this month, Gwendolyn Lopez-Cohen reviews a book that addresses this very problem of living in a technologic world. In the second book on parenting reviewed this month, Jimena Tuis Elizalde reviews a book trying to help parents go in the other direction: instead of being about how parents try to stay in the child’s mind through a variety of gizmos and proxies, it is about how to bring the child alive in the parent’s mind. It was perhaps unfortunate for Lear that he could not conjure up Cordelia in his mind and simply imagine why his daughter was saying what she was saying; a little bit more mindfulness from the most tragic parent in history and we might have been dealing with a comedy.
N
Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times. By Margaret K. Nelson. New York: New York University Press; 2010.
P
arenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times offers a scholarly survey of American families across a range of geographic and socioeconomic strata. It aims to characterize the changes in parenting as communications technology has exploded. With the introduction of new surveillance and communication technologies in the modern era, parents and professionals are seeking information to inform them on how best to use these new technologies. There are now a myriad of media vessels for covert surveillance and communication. The pitfalls and dangers are readily apparent. High-profile individuals in society are routinely shamed in the media when private communications are revealed to the public with e-mail or cellular telephone transcripts and images, and so are children and teens. In this book, Margaret Nelson, a sociology professor at Middlebury College, shares the results of her research examining a cross-section of American families raising adolescent children and their parenting practices. Dr. Nelson’s thesis suggests that the recent surge in surveillance technologies, including cellular telephones, global positioning systems, baby monitors, etc., are at times dangerous to modern parents and in fact may be contributing to heightened parental anxieties. Furthermore, the tools for parental monitoring and surveillance have shifted and the effects of these technologies on parenting continue to unfold. Nelson defines 2 parenting styles, “parenting out of control” and “parenting with limits,” and compares how the proponents of each style use modern technologies in their parenting practice. Her findings, although not surprising, offer a sobering look at modern parenting practices. Dr. Nelson conducted a systematic sociologic study that includes data collected from interviews with 96 families across the country. She categorizes the families as “professional middle class” or “middle and/or working middle class.” The author defines the 2 class groups as based on the educational achievement of the parents. Parents in the “professional middle class” category hold credentials beyond a bachelor’s degree
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF C HILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY VOLUME 52 NUMBER 10 OCTOBER 2013
www.jaacap.org
1097
M.D., M.P.H.
Assistant Editor
Modern Parenting o doubt many parents relate to King Lear’s withering condemnation of childhood ingratitude, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is/To have a thankless child” (King Lear Act I, Scene 2, lines 288–289), although few would otherwise identify Lear as a model for parenting. A lack of gratitude in one’s offspring is nevertheless to be expected, largely because the process of growing up means forgetting one’s parents at key moments. Fortunately, in today’s world, parents can always remind the child of their presence with a timely text, video montage, or, coming in the near future, 3-dimensional holographic conjurations. In fact, introjection soon may no longer be a key way parents figure in their children’s psyches; parents will exist, mostly in handheld form, outside the body. The advantage may be fewer therapists’ bills, but the psychic cost of losing one’s parental object in a taxicab probably cannot be measured. For our first review this month, Gwendolyn Lopez-Cohen reviews a book that addresses this very problem of living in a technologic world. In the second book on parenting reviewed this month, Jimena Tuis Elizalde reviews a book trying to help parents go in the other direction: instead of being about how parents try to stay in the child’s mind through a variety of gizmos and proxies, it is about how to bring the child alive in the parent’s mind. It was perhaps unfortunate for Lear that he could not conjure up Cordelia in his mind and simply imagine why his daughter was saying what she was saying; a little bit more mindfulness from the most tragic parent in history and we might have been dealing with a comedy.
N
Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times. By Margaret K. Nelson. New York: New York University Press; 2010.
P
arenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times offers a scholarly survey of American families across a range of geographic and socioeconomic strata. It aims to characterize the changes in parenting as communications technology has exploded. With the introduction of new surveillance and communication technologies in the modern era, parents and professionals are seeking information to inform them on how best to use these new technologies. There are now a myriad of media vessels for covert surveillance and communication. The pitfalls and dangers are readily apparent. High-profile individuals in society are routinely shamed in the media when private communications are revealed to the public with e-mail or cellular telephone transcripts and images, and so are children and teens. In this book, Margaret Nelson, a sociology professor at Middlebury College, shares the results of her research examining a cross-section of American families raising adolescent children and their parenting practices. Dr. Nelson’s thesis suggests that the recent surge in surveillance technologies, including cellular telephones, global positioning systems, baby monitors, etc., are at times dangerous to modern parents and in fact may be contributing to heightened parental anxieties. Furthermore, the tools for parental monitoring and surveillance have shifted and the effects of these technologies on parenting continue to unfold. Nelson defines 2 parenting styles, “parenting out of control” and “parenting with limits,” and compares how the proponents of each style use modern technologies in their parenting practice. Her findings, although not surprising, offer a sobering look at modern parenting practices. Dr. Nelson conducted a systematic sociologic study that includes data collected from interviews with 96 families across the country. She categorizes the families as “professional middle class” or “middle and/or working middle class.” The author defines the 2 class groups as based on the educational achievement of the parents. Parents in the “professional middle class” category hold credentials beyond a bachelor’s degree
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF C HILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY VOLUME 52 NUMBER 10 OCTOBER 2013
www.jaacap.org
1097