Time for Parenting...

...because raising children is a full-time job

Book Reviews

Family Policy, Family Changes; If You've Raised Kids You Can Manage Anything; What Mothers Do; Endangered; Why Love Matters; A Mothers' Rule of Life; Seven Myths of Working Mothers; Choosing to be different; Baby Hunger; The Miseducation of Women; Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families; Broken Hearts; Mother Love; The Smart Woman's Guide to Staying at Home; Ghosts from the Nursery - Tracing the Roots of Violence; Work-Lifestyle Choices in the 21st Century - Preference Theory; The Social Baby; Expecting Adam; Good Food for Kids; Access to Maternity Information and Support; Single Parents in Focus; The London Baby Directory; Marriage-Lite: The Rise of Cohabitation and its Consequences; Anything School Can Do You Can Do Better

Ghosts from the Nursery - Tracing the Roots of Violence

Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith Wiley reviewed by Jill Kirby

Concerned by the continuing increase in violent crime, especially amongst children and teenagers, the American authors of this book maintain that inside young offenders are the 'ghosts' of neglected babies.

Advances in neuroscience confirm what psychologists have long believed: that experiences in the first two years of a child's life provide the emotional blueprint which will determine the adult to come. Neglect, abuse, or failure to respond to a baby's needs will jeopardise the child's ability to trust, empathise and develop a conscience.

The book presents case histories of 'children who kill', alongside a mass of evidence about infant development and the pivotal role of both mothers and fathers in nurturing a new life. The authors, both practitioners and campaigners in child welfare, stress the need to identify 'at risk' infants (preferably before birth) and provide parents with structured advice, support and if necessary intervention.

Infants at risk include those of young, single mothers, those with a history of crime, drug or alcohol abuse, or who have themselves suffered abuse or neglect. This book should be read by all politicians- it might convince them that investing in full-time motherhood and stable families would be money better spent than building more prisons.

Atlantic Monthly Press available from amazon.com £12.99 pb