Book Review: All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modren Parenthood by Jennifer Senior

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior
Publisher: HarperCollins and Blackstone Audio
Release Date: January 28, 2014
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thousands of books have examined the effects of parents on their children. Award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior now asks: What are the effects of children on their parents? — In All Joy and No Fun, award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior isolates and analyzes the many ways in which children reshape their parents’ lives. She argues that changes in the last half century have radically altered the roles of today’s mothers and fathers, making their mandates at once more complex and far less clear. Recruiting from a wide variety of sources, she dissects both the timeless strains of parenting and the ones that are brand new, and then brings her research to life in the homes of ordinary parents around the country. Meticulously researched yet imbued with emotional intelligence, All Joy and No Fun is original and essential reading for mothers and fathers of today — and tomorrow.

All Joy and No Fun isn’t a traditional parenting book. It’s not going to give you a new system to disciple your child. Part of it is a fascinating look at how parenting has changed through the years. Up until child labor laws were enacted, children were expected to work or to be seen and not heard. Senior takes the reader up through present day. She explains the evolution of parenting that has led to the present day where children can be overscheduled and more and more parents are “helicopter parents”. She’s not critical, just informative. Interspersed throughout are personal examples of parents that she interviewed. She spoke to a wide variety, including a grandmother who parented her own children in the 1970s and is now parenting her grandchildren, a mother living in an affluent suburb, and a single working mother.

I found this book to be incredibly interesting and insightful as well as meticulously researched. I listened to the audio book which is narrated by the author. I’m usually wary when an authors narrates their own book since they are not usually experienced narrators. Senior did a great job and the book was pleasant to listen to.

I highly recommend this book to parents of kids of all ages.