Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book to help with the baby or not decision
Review: I am deciding if i am ready to have children or even if i want to have children.I was hooked after the first few pages. I doubt that all these issues relate to every parent but i don't doubt that every parent will have experienced certain parts of this book for themselves. Thank goodness i was able to read this book while i am still in the decision making phase. It does come across as quite negative but there are any number of books skewed towards the positive. I believe you have to take it all on board and use what you can. I read it in tandem with Baby Daze by Erina Reddin which i loved. Read the two together and i think you might have a reasonably realistic veiw of what can be expected, or at least several points of view to mull over
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book to help with the baby or not decision
Review: I am deciding if i am ready to have children or even if i want to have children. I was hooked after the first few pages. I doubt that all these issues relate to every parent but i don't doubt that every parent will have experienced certain parts of this book for themselves. Thank goodness i was able to read this book while i am still in the decision making phase. It does come across as quite negative but there are any number of books skewed towards the positive. I believe you have to take it all on board and use what you can. I read it in tandem with Baby Daze by Erina Reddin which i loved. Read the two together and i think you might have a reasonably realistic veiw of what can be expected, or at least several points of view to mull over
Rating: 
Summary: irresponsible...
Review: i bought this book in expectation, that there will be a zen approach to parenting, as it title says" guilt free parenting". but here it is more an "irresponsible parenting" than a guilt free parenting. i agree with the individual freedom one woman has whether she can have a baby or not. every one is free to choose. but there are certain facts, which don't need to feel guilty about, for example, breast feeding., the author says there is no scientific proof, that breast feeding is the best. this, i think, there is no need of a scientific proof. the horse gives his kid, horse milk,. the cow gives its kid, the cow milk..the dog gives its kid, the dog milk..the new born animal automatically ,intentionally, instinctively, searches for its mother's breast..
there is nothing wrong, when it comes to breast feeding, that one just postpone her career for a year or two. this is not a sacrifice but just an act of love. then, after the breast feeding period is over, one can certainly continue her career as she wishes..you know..first things first..
the author says, why one should do breast feeding in spite of cracks on nipples, that it make an inhygenic way of feedin. my god. the real advice should be, "treat the nipples first, make it hygenic, then do feeding" .
if one has no milk supply naturally, then it is a different problem..
i want the author to know, that in my language, tamil, the meaning of the word "mother" itself implies the meaning 'feeding'. i also think that the root of the english word 'mother' implies the charecter 'mothering'.
certainly, one cannot expect anything back from children. it is unnatural. love can only flow forward. tremondous maturity is needed to children, when they grow up, can feel love towards their parents.
the real zen free approach is' taking care of children to its fullest, but leaving it in its own growth, never expecting anything in back. one will be guilt free, not by other's advice, but by right ,heartful act. this book cannot be a great relief. guilt is something, happening inside us, making us aware, what we are doing something in error., and compelling us to correct ourself. guilt is a teacher..
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of problems, not enough solutions
Review: I checked this book out because I was curious as to how Susan Jeffers, whose book _End_the_Struggle,_Dance_with_Life_, I loved, could write something with such a horrible-sounding title. I was surprised to find that I could appreciate a lot of what _Brat_ has to say. She explains why it is inevitable that parents will be incredibly stressed out, not through any fault of their own but just because children have so many needs which their parents have to meet regardless of how busy or exhausted they are. This is a message I could have used in the first six months of motherhood, when I felt guilty about secretly wanting to get away from my baby for a month or so, despite loving him with all my heart. _Brat_ goes into extensive detail about the challenges of childrearing, and for that reason I would recommend it to people who are trying to make the parenting decision--especially those who have no compelling desire to have kids but are being pressured by others. However, this focus on the difficulties of parenting also can be pretty depressing to those of us who are parents. After being reminded of the inevitable losses that being a parent brings, I was starting to feel resentful of my 2-year-old son--though fortunately I was soon able to quash that by focussing on the good things that motherhood has brought. I wish that Jeffers had given much more information to help those of us who already are parents cope, rather than just a brief "survival guide" which appears as an addendum at the end of the book. While I agree with some of her suggestions (get fathers more involved, get a life outside of raising your kids), I find that her suggestion that employment outside the home is better than stay-at-home motherhood is overly simplistic. If, as she alleges, SAHM's can't get out because it is too difficult to gather up the baby's stuff and get baby dressed, how is it possible for her to do so to cart the baby off to daycare on the way to work? If caring for one child is too exhausting to cope with for any period of time (over an hour she suggests at one point!) why does she not have even more concern about daycare employees coping with a number of children all day? If SAHM's have "no" time for their own interests or even to wash their hair, how will adding the responsibilities of full-time employment help? I was also concerned that she sometimes claims that some children are inherently "bad". This kind of thinking does not lend itself to finding constructive solutions to problems with a child's behaviour. And what does it do to a child to be written off like this by hir own parent? For coping with the challenges of parenting, I have found the following books helpful: Parenting the Fussy Baby and High Needs Child by Martha and William Sears (check out chapter on avoiding burnout), Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, and All Mothers Work by Cindy Ramming (on the pros and cons of being a SAHM, and how to cope with SAHMhood if that is what's right for you).
Rating:
Summary: ugghh
Review: I got this book because it seemed like something I could proboably relate too. But as I read it the more disgusted I became. I could relate to some of the anecdotes that were in the book about apalling behavior of children, but the theme of loathing of children I could not relate to. It seems that the author hates children and regrets having had any. In truth as I read the book I kept thinking "I am so glad I am not her kid" and "I feel sorry for her kids". A pretty terrible book really. It is one of the few books I really regret having spent money on. If you hate children though, this is the book for you.
Rating: 
Summary: An honest account of parenting
Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone who is on-the-fence about having kids. My husband and I have been undecided about having kids, and this book has been extremely helpful to me by reviewing some of the negative aspects of parenting. You really don't read or hear about these things anywhere else except maybe from your closest (and honest) friends w/ kids. There are also a lot of positive and honest messages about parenting in this book, and the stereotypes of conventional parenting are thoroughly discussed. I imagine that some of the negative reviews of this book are from people who are afraid to admit to the negative aspects of parenting. In my opinion, it can only help a person to hear both sides of the story.
Rating:
Summary: An honest account of parenting
Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone who is on-the-fence about having kids. My husband and I have been undecided about having kids, and this book has been extremely helpful to me by reviewing some of the negative aspects of parenting. You really don't read or hear about these things anywhere else except maybe from your closest (and honest) friends w/ kids. There are also a lot of positive and honest messages about parenting in this book, and the stereotypes of conventional parenting are thoroughly discussed. I imagine that some of the negative reviews of this book are from people who are afraid to admit to the negative aspects of parenting. In my opinion, it can only help a person to hear both sides of the story.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbingly honest
Review: I think this book should be required reading for high school sex education classes and for anyone who is *consciously* deciding whether to become a parent or not. Too many times this momentous, life-chaging decision is based on romanticized ideals of parenthood or on society's expectations (or even by accident!), and not enough time is spent in researching what it's *really* like. Far from being a parent-bashing book, it highlights the not-so-wonderful parts of the job and provides a much-needed balance to the soft-focused, Kodak moment images that are held up to us as the ideal. I've chosen not to have kids: this book details many of the reasons why I've made this very personal choice. And a possible side effect: you may feel an urge to call your own parents and thank them for putting up with you while you were growing up -- at least that's what I did!
Rating:
Summary: I feel betrayed...
Review: I was so excited to stumble across this book in a used book store. I had never heard of it or the author, and from reading the back it sounded like something I could really relate to. I have only one child and don't want any more, and for the first half of Ms. Jeffers book I agreed with most of what she had to say. Then she went and minimalized the importance of breastfeeding, and lost me on the spot. I nearly threw the book across the room, I was so shocked and angry. She posits that because breastfeeding is not always the most comfortable thing for a mother to do, she shouldn't be pressured to do it. Well, seatbelts aren't comfortable, either. Should we only wear them if we want to? Vaginal delivery isn't comfortable - should women be encouraged to have elective c-sections? Vaccinations sometimes make us feel a bit ill - should we be encourage to get them only if the mood strikes us? Breastfeeding, like all of these things, *is* the most healthy option, and for Jeffers to say that women should be able to deny their children what is biologically best for them "for whatever reason" is scientifically unsound and casts a dark cloud over everything else she writes. If she got breastfeeding so wrong, why should I trust anything she has to say? Jeffers asks us to "take what works for you and let the rest go". Well, I let the whole book go, right into the trash can. I won't even trade this crap back to the used book store, lest some easily manipulated woman pick it out and be subjected to such nonsense.
Rating: 
Summary: Heard it before
Review: I'm a divorce attorney in Columbus, Ohio. In the last ten years, I have heard Dr. Jeffer's "if the parent is happier, the child will be happier" argument used to support decisions to divorce, decisions to remove children from the state in which the other parent resides for the removing parents' convenience, and decisions to simply not work with the other parent for the child's benefit because it is too inconvenient or frustrating. This "me, myself, and I" mentality is not what parenting is all about.
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