So in case you haven’t noticed, this blog is run by two Millennial moms and we lean into it hard. For this Child(ish) Read, I chose this book because I wanted to learn more about Millennial thinking and sociology; specifically about the reasons we are the way we are and how this directly affects how we parent.
But You’re Still So Young: How Thirtysomethings Are Redefining Adulthood
by Kayleen Schaefer
This book appeared on my radar earlier this year. Author Dana Suskind, M.D. just came out with a new title, Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child’s Potential, Fulfilling Society’s Promise, and this was one of her previous books listed in her bio. Thirty Million Words was available from my library, so I gave it a try on a work trip in April.
Continue readingSurprise! This is the first time Child(ish) Reads has reviewed a fiction title. So, a couple rule changes:
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Blurb: Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.
Until Frida has a very bad day.
The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.
Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.
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Lots of podcast action in rotation this winter. With many hosts on break for the holidays, I got to go through a backlog of episodes and found a couple new parenting podcasters to follow.
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It’s kinda serendipitous that I picked this book this month. The Georgia PreK Lottery opens today!
In Fulton County, Georgia, incoming 4-year-olds looking for free, public PreK enter a lottery on March 1st. You apply for the public elementary school that you are zoned in, and each school has a limited number of PreK slots. If you don’t get selected, you can be waitlisted for other schools if space allows.
I have absolutely no frame of reference for the odds of getting selected. When we moved last year, I was satisfied with the elementary school we were zoned for, looking at the GreatSchools scores and stats. From reading The Family Firm, Troy and I were able to weigh our options for how we were going to tackle this very big school year. But still, some of our decisions would be null and void depending the outcome of a lottery that is in no way in our control.
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