The High Stakes of Child Rearing

By

Screen Shot 2014-01-24 at 10.51.19 AMEver since my husband and I read the line, “all joy and no fun,” in Jennifer Senior’s 2010 New York Magazine story of the same name, we’ve been using it to describe the unique predicament of parenting young kids. Yes, our lives feel more meaningful thanks to our little munchkins, but parenthood can also feel limiting on its best days, and like pure hell in its darkest moments. By examining the effect children have upon their parents–rather than the other way around–Senior gave voice to sentiments we’re not proud to admit, but totally identify with, and she delves even deeper into the ways children alter our lives for her debut book, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting (because why mess with a title that sticks?). Tonight she’ll be speaking about her research and reporting with New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor at St. Joseph’s College, in association with Greenlight Bookstore. As Senior writes in her introduction, prospective parents have “no clue what it will feel like to have their hearts permanently annexed.” Even for those already well aware of this tectonic shift, her book clues us all in.–N.D.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)