When We're In Public, Pretend You Don't Know Me: Surviving Your Daughter's Adolescence so You Don't Look like an Idiot and She Still Talks to You

Rating:
Summary: Laughing all the way to adulthood
Review: I am the mother of a 14 year-old girl. She's a great kid, but when she went away to camp for a month and people asked me if I missed her, I said, "NO."

I'm a pretty good mom; I used to teach teenagers, and I have some clue about what this age is about. Still, Borowitz's book had me laughing out loud, and while I was laughing, some new ideas slipped in. Life post-camp is looking a little brighter.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and helpful
Review: Okay, I'm not a parent, let alone parent of a teenager...but I will be someday, and I'm interested, so I'm thinking about it and reading up. Here's what I'm thinking about this book:

I love it. It's wryly funny -- even occasionally hysterical -- and much of it rings true from watching my relatives bring up teenagers, being one not too long ago myself (though I didn't have some of the more extreme issues I notice in others), watching my own mom cope with me, and seeing the daily struggles between my peers and their moms when we were teens. There's a lot of "common sense" here, but don't let that statement fool you into thinking the book's useless; the best of us sometimes forget to exercise our "common" sense.

I particularly appreciate the ("common sense?") idea that moms should not fall into the trap of being "clueless" or the opposite trap of being your daughter's "cool" best friend. The best way to be both parent and friend is to be what Mrs. Borowitz calls "the uncool mom:" setting good boundaries, remaining in control, being yourself, picking your battles, and butting out when your daughter needs to manage on her own (which is more often than you think.) My own mother did a generally great job of this, and we are now what one might call "best friends" as adults -- still very much mother-daughter, but with mutual respect, friendship, and tolerance built out of (usually, and usually this was Mom's doing) handling our conflicts in a healthy way when I was a minor. This book is written by a mom who sounds a lot like mine...but even my mom could have learned something from her.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and helpful
Review: Okay, I'm not a parent, let alone parent of a teenager...but I will be someday, and I'm interested, so I'm thinking about it and reading up. Here's what I'm thinking about this book:

I love it. It's wryly funny -- even occasionally hysterical -- and much of it rings true from watching my relatives bring up teenagers, being one not too long ago myself (though I didn't have some of the more extreme issues I notice in others), watching my own mom cope with me, and seeing the daily struggles between my peers and their moms when we were teens. There's a lot of "common sense" here, but don't let that statement fool you into thinking the book's useless; the best of us sometimes forget to exercise our "common" sense.

I particularly appreciate the ("common sense?") idea that moms should not fall into the trap of being "clueless" or the opposite trap of being your daughter's "cool" best friend. The best way to be both parent and friend is to be what Mrs. Borowitz calls "the uncool mom:" setting good boundaries, remaining in control, being yourself, picking your battles, and butting out when your daughter needs to manage on her own (which is more often than you think.) My own mother did a generally great job of this, and we are now what one might call "best friends" as adults -- still very much mother-daughter, but with mutual respect, friendship, and tolerance built out of (usually, and usually this was Mom's doing) handling our conflicts in a healthy way when I was a minor. This book is written by a mom who sounds a lot like mine...but even my mom could have learned something from her.

Rating:
Summary: It's good, but...
Review: Susan Borowitz offers practical wisdom and humorous tales regarding her and her own friends experiences with their adolescent girls. It's witty and very inciteful. I didn't agree with some of the advice from "parenting expert" Ava L. Siegler, in particular when she states "Forget teaching abstinence. It's wishful thinking and a waste of time!". I don't agree! It's never a waste of time to try to instill morals in your child's upbringing! The book does have value regarding how mothers should be (uncool) rather than "clueless" or "bestbuds" and offers good tips and strategies in dealing with adolence.