I'm listening to Leonard Lopate's June 2003 interview with Ann Hulbert, whose columns for Slate I keep linking to here. She's discussing her book, Raising America: Experts, Parents and A Century of Advice About Children. One interesting insight she had while researching all these (largely self-appointed) experts: a lot of them were extremely self-conscious about having been mama's boys. In some way, they were all "trying to correct their own childhoods."
Hulbert's latest article for Slate is on how the presidential candidates seem to have switched positions on parenting. Conservative Bush is all, "I wish I could put'em on a leash, [even though I got them their first fake ID's]" and Kerry's all, "Be home by 7. No, wait, I'm coming with you two." Meanwhile, it's conventional wisdom that I turned into a raging conservative as soon as I found out we were having a girl. My motto: "She's not leaving the house til she's 30."
Listen to Hulbert's interview (31 min.) [The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC]
Previous Hulbert-related posts
Get Raising America at Amazon
