Please yell at my kids What cultures around the world can teach you about parenting in community, raising independent kids, and not losing your mind

Marina Lopes

Book - 2025

"The difficulty of raising kids in America is well-known--no federally supported parental leave, a lack of mental health support, a crushing combination of workplace pressure and aspirational parental perfection, and the fresh hell that is the playgroup Facebook page. But what if there was another way? The simple fact is that parenting, and specifically motherhood, looks wildly different across nations. Please Yell at My Kids is an around the world journey and a practical guide to rethinking parenting. What can we learn from Brazilian birth parties, Singaporean grandparents, and Danish babies sleeping soundly outside of coffee shops? And how can that be integrated into the lives of American readers, even if we can't hop on a plane... and wing our way to the land of paid parental leave? Journalist Marina Lopes travels around the globe, interviewing and learning from parents in Singapore, France, Mozambique, Indonesia, Japan, Sweden and more to provide practical, actionable ways to reimagine parenting in America. At the heart of many global approaches to parenting lies one simple, and not so simple thing: community. In America, parenting is, at best, a dual mission, perhaps with one partner playing the role of sidekick and occasional comic relief. But globally parenthood is more often a team sport, played in the center of a community that helps, supports, and occasionally drives you up the wall. From guiding caregivers through how to define their own non-negotiable values, to navigating tricky conversations with their in-laws, Please Yell at My Kids provides readers with the inspiration and practical tools to build a community of care in their own lives and reimagine parenthood in a joyful new way."--

Saved in:

2nd Floor New Shelf Show me where

649.1/Lopes
0 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor New Shelf 649.1/Lopes (NEW SHELF) Due Nov 11, 2025
Subjects
Genres
Informational works
Published
New York, NY : Balance 2025.
Language
English
Main Author
Marina Lopes (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xv, 269 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-267).
ISBN
9780306834417
  • Introduction
  • Rule 1. Invite Guests to Your C-Section (Brazil)
  • Rule 2. Don't Wash Your Hair for Forty Days (China)
  • Rule 3. Let Your Baby Sleep Outside (Denmark)
  • Rule 4. Develop the Paternal Instinct (Sweden)
  • Rule 5. Love Thy Nosey Neighbor (Mozambique)
  • Rule 6. Propose to a Friend (Malaysia)
  • Rule 7. Make Granny Nanny (Singapore, Part 1)
  • Rule 8. Shout for Help (Singapore, Part 2)
  • Rule 9. Abandon Your Kids in the Woods (Netherlands)
  • Rule 10. Give Your Toddler Blue Cheese (France)
  • Rule 11. Cross the Finnish Line (Finland)
  • Home Again (United States)
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Resources
  • Notes
  • About the Author
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

"Raising children should not be a private project, but a shared one," according to this edifying debut. Brazilian American journalist Lopes recounts how the assistance that even distant family members provided her after the birth of her eldest child in Brazil was a salve, contrasting it with how an individualistic culture, unaffordable child care, and lack of paid family leave left her American friends with kids "shells" of themselves. Contending that Americans would do well to learn from how other countries approach parenthood, she suggests that severe economic inequality in the U.S. produces the anxiety about downward mobility that drives helicopter parenting, pointing to the Netherlands' greater economic equality and affordable education system as central reasons why Dutch parents take a more relaxed approach. Elsewhere, she discusses how the Iban tribe's communal dwellings in Malaysia--which house up to 40 families--mirrored her own decision to raise her kids in the same household as her two married friends and their children. The eye-opening examination of foreign child-rearing practices demonstrates how policy failings and damaging cultural expectations have made raising a kid in the U.S. unnecessarily difficult. This sharp study makes a persuasive case against American-style parenting while charting a better path forward. Agent: Jenna Land Free, Folio Literary. (Apr.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved