What We'll Build

I don't know how I feel about this. It's so seductive. But - hmmm. Before I became a parent, I didn't - obviously? - traffic in any of the Parenting Industrial Complex and various parenting subcultures. I had zero knowledge of “attachment parenting”, zero opinion on “parenting philosophies”, and basically zero experience in any of this stuff. Family- and child-centric entertainment and culture had mostly eluded me for the ~20 years between me being a teenager (and rejecting “kid stuff”) and me actually having a kid. Now that I am swimming in kid culture all day, every day, I have been slowly forming opinions - as and when my limited remaining cognitive energy allows. One of these slowly-forming opinions is on children's books. I've noticed something. There are several “types” of children's books:- Problematic classics: All that mostly Medieval, pre-20th century stuff where children are eaten by witches or ogres if they disobey their parents, or otherwise mutilated (fingers cut off, turned into mince pies, etc), or terribly sexist stuff where women are almost always damsels in distress/princesses in towers waiting on some plastic Ken doll. Colorful, fun, something we choose to basically never expose to our kid except via movie time (i.e. old Disney).- Non-problematic classics that stand the test of time: Dr. Seuss. Maurice Sendak. - Modern hits from the recent, post-my-own-childhood past: Strega Nona. The Day the Crayons Quit. Press Here. Stuff like that - stuff that's enjoyable to both the parents and the kids.- Gooey spiritual books with a hipster aesthetic: THIS ONE!- Gag baby registry books: Rocket Science for Babies - a waste of resources!- Agenda books: Anti-Racist Baby, Feminist Baby. I gave my kids Buddhist baby books and I already feel embarrassed/silly about it. Like I'm taking advantage of their age and impressionability to start a brainwashing campaign. Anyway, these are the books that have Important Values that the parents are anxious to impart on their kids, but that are probably just waaay over the kids' heads and I almost feel bad dragging them into the shitty parts of society (prejudice, etc), especially when it's clumsily written. Don't get me started on the anti-racist baby book: “point to policies, not people” - right. I'll tell that to my toddler. : ANYWAY. So this book is a gooey spiritual feel-good-about-parenting book that is gorgeous - GWAGEOUS - and my kid found almost entirely boring. I guess, in my head, I thought we'd read this and my kid would go, “oh wow the magic of childhood is truly magical” but... yeah, I don't know if any kid thinks that.