“This book cannot tell you how to raise your baby, because no one can tell you how to do that,” asserts the introduction of this wonderfully diverse collection of parental voices. Publisher A Kids Co., best known for their visually bold kids’ books on sometimes challenging topics, has brought together over 100 contributors from a wide range of backgrounds and identities to share their parenting advice and anecdotes with new parents.
The writers show diversity across racial and ethnic identities, health and disabilities, sexual orientation, genders, relationship type and status, family structure, and ages. Happily, they are not pigeonholed into giving advice around one of their specific identities; queer contributors, for example, offer pieces on moral responsibility, living with your parent, money stories, and more, as well as on gender expectations.
Topics covered include baby-caring essentials, like sleep patterns, diapers, and feeding; big-picture subjects like parenting philosophy, staying home or going to work, day-to-day fears, raising an anti-racist baby, and building community; self-care, such as staying connected, overcoming frustration, postpartum depression, and postpartum depression in dads and nonbirthing parents; relationship and family advice about division of labor, anger and arguments, changing family dynamics, money and budgeting, siblings, extended family, and divorce; specifics for some families like raising a mixed-race child, single parenting, and living far from support networks; and much more.
One piece covers handling intrusive questions as a queer family (like “Who’s the real mom?), but the author tries to offer some relevance to others, too, for example, by suggesting non-queer parents can use this information to be better allies. Overall, by combining advice for many different types of parents into one book, the editors have created a work that both speaks to individuals’ intersectional identities and also offers insights into identities not their own. In the end, I think this can help us all be better parents and better human beings. (That’s not to say we don’t also need books that speak specifically to certain subsets of parents; just that there’s also value in a wider approach, too.)
Each piece is only two or three pages long, ideal for new parents and parents-to-be who may only have a few minutes at a time to read. It’s the kind of book one can easily browse, opening at random for some parenting wisdom—but could also be read right through for those so inclined. The pieces are made extra readable with big headers and frequent bullet points, as well as a TL;DR summary at the start of each one.
Featured contributors include Dr. Becky Kennedy, clinical psychologist and Instagram’s “Parenting Whisperer”; Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, singer, dancer, and actress; Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs, a founding member of the Women’s March; and Emmitt Smith, former NFL player, as well as many lesser known folks with insights and stories about parenting. They’re not necessarily experts, but they are parents with experience—and even if you don’t agree with them, thinking about why and how you disagree may be valuable for your parental development as well.
This would be a great gift book for almost any new parent (or a treat for yourself as well).
