Jamaica Plain Mom on the Best Parenting Books (None!)

Every week the JP Patch Moms Council tackles a parenting topic. This week: Favorite parenting books.

: The books I have read have left me feeling anxious and inadequate.

My background is in book publishing. I have spent years and years of my life promoting books. In fact my greatest passion is reading,

Therefore I feel as if it should be my job here to promote a set of wonderful parenting books.  For this article we have been asked to recommend our favorites. However this presents a problem to me since what I really want to tell new parents is forget the books — give them away, toss them in recycling or better still don’t even waste your money on them to start with.

Experience has shown me that you find your own path as a parent, your own style and your own way to survive. The books I have read have left me feeling anxious and inadequate. There is no right way to parent. In fact I have found that my three children have such different needs that I often have to be a different sort of parent to each. No book can tell you this.

Over the years I have realized that sharing experiences and talking over problems and anxieties with other parents provides much more help and support than anything I have ever read in any parenting book.