If taken literally, the name of my book, The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents, might suggest that I endorse the aggressive perfecting of infants. I don’t. PBH is a deadpan critique of over-parenting—gentle comic relief for those who are raising children in the the midst of madness. Surprisingly, its publication has […]

» Continue reading "Child (nearly) arrested for being a child"

Tensions are running high at Perfect Baby Handbook Worldwide Headquarters on Montague Street. It seems our services are no longer needed! At least according to this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, in which Lisa Belkin proclaims that the days of “helicoptering, smothering mothering…overly enmeshed parenting” or “get-them-into-Harvard-or-bust parenting” are numbered. It seems as though the […]

» Continue reading "How the New York Times envisions the “end of over-parenting”"

The Perfect Baby Blog is on a brief hiatus while I’m in Canada. Until May 26, when regular blogging will recommence, I’ll be posting excerpts and illos from The Perfect Baby Handbook that provide an insider glimpse of how the book came together. Today: A challenge. Chapter One includes a guide to setting up a […]

» Continue reading "Inside the making of The Perfect Baby Handbook"

It’s a red-letter day here at Perfect Baby Handbook Worldwide Headquarters on Montague Street. Quite unexpectedly, Liesl Schillinger of The New York Times has given the book a marvelous, glowing review. BEFORE the magical process can begin by which a child (boy or girl) is converted to a hero, that child must first complete the […]

» Continue reading "The New York Times likes The Perfect Baby Handbook! Yay!"

The Wall Street Journal reports on a popular new pastime: publicly confessing what a shitty caregiver you are. The piece cites Babble.com’s phenomenally successful “Bad Parent” column, and enough new books on the subject (including one by Michael Chabon’s notorious wife) to justify Compulsively Shared Parental Incompetence as a trend. Best anecdote: The woman who […]

» Continue reading "Inside the “bad parent” craze"