The beginning of this book is a bit slow as I recall, there is a lot of personal history from the perspective of the author. She continues to pepper in her families biography throughout the book but most of it is at the beginning and towards to last third when she has two more children. She tells us maybe a bit too much about her life, more than is necessary to follow the anecdotes she uses as illustrations. Overall her establishing what she and her family are like is of benefit to the book but at times it seems a bit frivolous. Much of the information neither applies to the main content of the book nor endears us to her. At times too much of a peak into her own personality and her family make them come across as too bougie and out of touch with reality. I think that the advice in this book could be helpful to parents of any class but by digging too far into her own life it can feel alienating to parents with a more modest background.
Apart from her overindulgence on sharing her life in this book the whole thing is great. Most of what she shares is scathingly personal in a very helpful way to the reader. She doesn't present herself as someone who thinks she has all the answers to parenting but rather someone who is constantly learning and keying you in on the little things she's learned along the way. The chapters for the most part are broken up into sensible themes and each is approached methodically to the best of her ability with many of the gaps in what she's learned explicitly noted. The perspective she has gained as an expatriate parent is invaluable to anyone looking for a fresh perspective on parenting. The concept for this book sounded very intriguing to me and I was certainly not let down by Druckerman's execution of that concept. This is a great book for any parent of very young children or expectant parents that I believe offers some very constructive advice in avoiding some of the serious shortcomings in popular American parenting philosophies.
