Widening parents’ options

Press, 5 November 1977, Page 17

Widening parents’ options

Book of Child Care: The Complete Guide For Today's Parents. By Hugh Jolly. Revised edition, Sphere Books. 621 pp. $6.10. (Reviewed by Alison Neale) It was a bad winter for parents with young children. Wet nappies everywhere, pre-schoolers and their mess imprisoned inside, and escalating electricity costs forcing a decision between staying warm and staying solvent. Can a book of advice, even a “complete guide,” help much in the exhausting, time-consuming job of caring for babies and toddlers? Dr Jolly points out that grandparents are seldom around nowadays. In any case mothers are not so willing to take their advice. That is one advantage for a book of child care. It can be left on the shelf and ignored. A more important advantage is that

this book can widen patents’ options. Dr Jolly does not offer infallible curealls. He adopts the approach “Try this; if it does not work, try this” — the only approach that is much use, with children being cussedly individual and and family life-styles so various. So, when the baby is screaming at 1 a.m., this book may give you some new ideas to try. Like a security blanket, it offers something to hold on to, which is always a help in times of desperation. Ploughing through all the index references might prove frustrating at that time of night. It would help to underline the main references for each topic or problem. Dr Jolly’s book does give reasonably up-to-date information on child

development and child rearing. The lack of any references or suggestions for further reading leaves one with the impression that his ideas are indeed considered the complete answer. His chapter on discipline makes sense; but it is not all that different from Dr Spock’s views which have been blamed, rightly or not, for most of the ills of the 1960 s in the United States. Is there another side to the question? If so, Dr Jolly does not refer to it. Similarly, the special problems of working mothers and of solo parents, while given a sub section of a chapter each, are largely ignored elsewhere. This is a book for families, no longer the universal norm, in which there is a full-time mother at home with the children and a father bringing in the cash. Dr Jolly throws a sop to the feminists by assuring the reader that the “you” to whom be addresses himself refers to both Mum and Dad. Having done that he writes as if the “you” is usually a mother. A passage starting “unless your husband enjoys shopping and cooking” really made me squirm. Many women do not enjoy shopping and cooking either, but are still landed with the jobs. Buy this book as insurance for your midnight crises. It covers most problems. Like Dr Spock, it will be of most value when parents are making the hard decision of whether or not to call the doctor. But a book can never take the place of a person, so talk over what you read with other parents, neighbours, the doctor, or the Plunket Nurse.