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An elastic bag of parental tricks

Naomi Starkey finds much of interest in this guide, but some weird ideas, too

Book jacket © not advert

The Christian Parent’s Toolkit
Sarah Johnson

Continuum £10.99 (978-0-8264-9784-0)
Church Times Bookshop £9.90

READING this book felt like sitting down for a coffee with a talkative but slightly scatty friend who launches into conversation, but half an hour later rushes off to another appointment, leaving you to disentangle the helpful anecdotes, examples, and ideas from all the other stuff she said.

The book offers an idiosyncratic presentation of a range of diverse issues relating to parenting. These include hints on making faith a normal part of family life; discipline; creating a secure home atmosphere; and defining family values, among other such topics.

The author comments personally and provocatively on issues such as the morning-after pill, TV, and smacking. At times I struggled to decide whether she was being tongue-in-cheek, or simply outrageous — for instance, when she talks of longing to embarrass her teenagers’ friends, or when she describes the US childcare guru Dr James Dobson as advocating an “emotional closeness” after smacking which “is creepy, slightly sexual, and has a whiff of sadism that one hopes is entirely unwitting”.

Elsewhere, there are flashes of great insight: she gives down-to-earth suggestions for helping a shy child to befriend the cool kids in the class; a sharp analysis of changing fashions in parenting styles, and the current obsession with parental emotional control; as well as helpful hints on giving praise, if you find it does not come naturally. What this book lacked, though, was a good editor.

The overall idea is that it provides a “toolkit” of parenting essentials; but a glance at the contents page shows that the metaphor is stretched from the outset. This toolkit contains a road map, clock, invisible string, and a key, but it also contains ears, a God bag, and water and wine — and describing these as “toolkit items” just sounds weird. The flashes of insight emerged despite, rather than because of, this structure.

Elsewhere, I felt that potentially useful metaphors were overworked to the extent of obscuring the point in hand.

I would also query the wisdom of including words in Greek and Anglo-Saxon (only a few, admittedly, but they implied a highbrow rather than a broad readership).

And at £10.99 for 160 pages (148 pages of text), this book is definitely over-priced.

Naomi Starkey edits the BRF’s adult book list, New Daylight Bible notes, and Quiet Spaces journal.

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