Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen Doucleff

Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans Reviews

• 
  Amber

  I resent all parenting books, just like I hate every article that tells me I’m washing my face wrong or eating Tic Tacs wrong or making my grocery list wrong. Like, I’ve made it to age 36 and everything’s pretty much fine so I think I’ve got it under control? I also resented my husband for buying this book because he liked an interview he heard with the author on NPR. Uhhh, our kid is 3? AND A HALF! So I think I’m good, dude. But I read it anyway and the book called me out every time I was dubious and NO WAYing. The author is all like, “I was skeptical, I have a PhD in chemistry, I’m not dumb- I thought, ‘No way!’”. And if there’s one thing I have to respect, it’s a chemistry witch with mind-reading capabilities.
  
  This book is surprisingly helpful and only kind of gimmicky! It’s weird how revolutionary the concept of just doing your chores and hobbies around your kid, instead of doing them when your kid is asleep or away at school, feels. I have more free time later, my kid is learning how to take care of stuff and also entertain themselves without me, and they’re also more chill. Like, day one of barely attempting this and they woke up from their nap telling me helping is their favorite??? Day two and they put on their own shoes???? What???? Ok, sure, I’ll take it. Thanks, stupid helpful well-researched book!
• 
  Phillip

  Giving 3.5 stars. Here’s my hot take in a few points:
  
  1) if you get it in your head from the outset that this book is not academic but personal, autobiographical, and pragmatic with some confirmation from academia you’ll enjoy it more.
  
  2) I really loved how practical it was. Strewn with action items and recommendations throughout and illustrates good examples of applications from her own parenting and those she learned from. I’m very interested to implement some of them and see how it turns out
  
  3) I think the scope of the book doesn’t match the ambitions of its title. While there are good snippets where she supports her experiences with three particular cultures more broadly with research from others, it’s still full of so many over-generalizations that could have been avoided if the work were reduced and compiled into a series of essays instead.
  
  4) some things that kind of bugged me were the use of the term “Western Parenting” (think there needs to be more nuance there because that’s got a lot of assumptions baked into it), and a little too much fetishization (in some instances I thought it led to reductive thinking about entire peoples)
  
  5) lastly, something that really bugged me was a stark absence of commentary on fathers and sons until the last chapters (which still left me underwhelmed). Up until her trip to Tanzania the men seem to be either gone or portrayed as pretty dopey, and those ones that are seen positively are not the actual fathers of the children. Also, I might’ve counted wrong but I’m pretty sure there is literally one example in the entire book of a parent implementing one of her principles with a boy. I’m a dad and I have two boys, so definitely a bit of head scratching for me there. Not to be all woe is me privileged white boy dad but in a book that professes to be about universal parenting principles I would’ve loved to see more representative ratios of examples.
  
  All that said I think it’s clear the author put her heart and soul into the book and I really appreciate that she is thoughtfully bringing a broader perspective on family relationships to the attention of us stressed out American parents. We truly need it, and I really hope some of these tips work for us when we try them!
• 
  Adria

  SUMMARY OF REVIEW: DEAR PUBLISHER, WHY NOT PUBLISH BOOKS BY THE EXCELLENT HUNTER/GATHERER PARENTS instead of making a best seller out of Doucleff?
  
  The parenting tips seem good -- especially the ones that are nearly exact quotes from the different women she interviewed. But the overall book is problematic in its simplistic and rosy depiction of people's lives and the texts and documentaries they hearken back to - hunter/gatherer or not, everyone faces complications. Making the lives of these various peoples seem "simple" downplays the humanity and reality of their lives. I also got much less out of the stories about the author's application of what she was learning to her own daughter, than I did from the women themselves. My kids are older, I have five, what she was learning and how she applied it is different than what I was learning from them. Which is fine -- but then WHY NOT PUBLISH BOOKS BY THOSE EXCELLENT PARENTS instead of making a best seller out of Doucleff?
  
  **edit** Doucleff has pledged 35% of proceeds to the various people/towns she worked with. I applaud this and am glad to hear it. But -- why is that on the author to be a good person? Why isn't the publisher held accountable to that instead of her? I believe Doucleff truly connected with them and that she means well, but I don't understand why in 2021 a publisher wouldn't see the problem with publishing a white woman's writing the words of a whole lot of families of color.
  
  Much less problematic - but I wonder what she would have observed had she spent more time watching the boy children and their sense of responsibility towards the house and the kids. The parenting and implications of gender roles was a huge piece of this story that was never discussed.
• 
  C

  Let me save you some time
  1. Give small children helpful household tasks even if they aren't good at them yet.
  2. Don't get into power struggles with your children, instead cooperate with them. Stay calm. Talk or play act through the situation later when emotions are under control.
  
  I hated this book. I think it was made worse by the author's insistence on narrating the audiobooks. Her tone was weirdly upbeat and grating. Her perspective was cringe worthy. A PhD reporter living in San Francisco is not the definitive voice on western parenting. What does western even mean? Does she have any background in child psychology? Western anthropology? No. She repeatedly says western in the book, but really she means her household. She seems to have never spent time with an American working class family. The three groups she visits don't seem to be very different from working-class or agricultural families in the US, and neither do many of their dynamics. She came off as tone deaf (look at these magical, primitive people) and extremely biased by her own experience with her own child. I got so tired of hearing about her child Rosie. Rosie is not every child. The author barely acknowledges the stages of childhood development or the needs of particular children. Rosie is also an only child so there is no mention of other family dynamics that come into play.
  
  Also, this book seems sexist (“Thinking of childcare as a one woman show”). Her husband seems to have almost no involvement in parenting other than giving knowing looks. When she is visiting the three groups, I don't think any of her anecdotes involved older brothers taking on any familial responsibilities. Has she never heard that raising a child takes a village? Did she really need to visit three villages to understand the truth of that statement?
  
  I have other complaints, I don't like how she keeps calling her kid a baby (like that's for babies, you're not a baby are you?). I don't like that she didn't address the different adulthoods that a child in San Francisco would have versus a child from the three locations referenced. Would children raised in hunter-gatherer societies be able to thrive in the culture her daughter will live in?
  
  I thought the book was best when sharing broad evolutionary or anthropological overviews. There was a huge decline in quality when she shifted back to the first person and kept talking about her singular experience as a middle/upper class US coastal mom who thought she was supposed to do all child raising on her own. I had heard her on NPR so now that I am about to become a parent I have been tearing through recent popular parenting books. I should've left it at the short form NPR segment instead of dragging myself through this vanity project. This is one you can definitely skip.
  
• 
  Tiffany

  Some issues with this book:
  • The advice is not supported by research. The author relies on her limited observations of other families, and on the results of applying techniques to a one person sample, her own daughter.
  • The author assumes that child-rearing methods from other cultures are ideal for producing children that are well-prepared to contend with western culture.
  • The author presents an over-simplified picture of the cultures she visits and never moves past the surface-level observations of the one or two childcare tips she adopts from each.
  • The advice is sometimes contradictory. On the one hand, the author advocates for raising a child that has an intrinsic motivation to help and do the right thing, while on the other hand, she thinks it’s a good idea to scare your child into believing that they will be abducted by a monster if they don’t do what you tell them. The ‘scare them into compliance’ advice is especially disturbing because it’s most strongly advocated for use on children under age 6, who aren’t yet able to fully discern between fiction and nonfiction. Parenting through fear is an antiquated and unacceptable approach in 2021. How can a parent build trust when they are actively misrepresenting the world to manipulate their children?
  • The advice in many cases seems to ignore the developmental stages of childhood and sometimes advocates belittling children who are behaving in ways that are expected. For example, toddlers and young children often have strong emotional responses because they can’t yet regulate emotions or express themselves verbally as well as they’d like. The author advises that you either ignore your child when they’re upset or call them a baby. Shaming your child into behaving the way you want them to is not a kind approach.
  • In some cases the advice is more about what’s convenient for the parents than what will enrich the child. For example, the author argues that children don’t need toys; children can get everything they need by just following their parents around and watching them do chores. The author also says that there’s no reason to spend time doing kid-centered activities, and they should just do what the parents want to do. This means no enrichment trips to children’s museums, less social interaction with other kids, etc. The author doesn’t give any reason why the interests of parents are more important than the interests of kids.
  • Where are the males in this book?
  
  Overall, it seems that the author goes too far with her advice, picking up a nugget of wisdom, and turning it into something extreme. She takes what could be reasonable advice (let your child help you do chores, even if it makes things more difficult in the moment) to something ridiculous (don’t buy your child toys; don’t take your child to do things that are child-centered activities; let them get ALL of their enrichment from watching you do chores); it's unfortunate, because there are good ideas here but they are sort of warped by the author's interpretation and application.
• 
  Traci Thomas

  I really appreciated the advice and suggestions in this book. Lots of helpful ideas and tips. The ways were encouraged to change our approach to parenting made lots of sense. The author is a white woman and there seems to be a fetishization of other cultures that felt a little off. Also way too much personal interest from the author. This book could’ve easily been 100 pages shorter had it focused on the parenting and less on scene setting.
• 
  Maria McGrath

  I think that if this book had been around sooner, my teens and young adult would be even happier and more self-actualized. I've been reading parenting and child development books for about twenty years now (my oldest is 20), and some have been real standouts, but this is the first that really steps back from scientific studies to take a longer and wider view. Rather than contrasting Western parenting styles with what the rest of the world does, Doucleff looks at the practices of more rural societies in Mexico, Tanzania, and Canada, who live more communally and traditionally and, seemingly consequently, have much calmer children and much less fraught parent-child relations.
  Doucleff bravely cites all the mistakes she makes in her own parenting journey and the baffled but kind reactions she receives from her hosts while at the same time laying out helpful action steps for parents who are interested in adopting her newly learned techniques ("Dip Your Toe").
  I'm lucky that I stumbled onto
  The Idle Parent: Why Laid-Back Parents Raise Happier and Healthier Kids years ago, as well as the excellent
  The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives, which eloquently and repeatedly argues that kids will make reasonable decisions if given the chance and the right information--we really don't have to manipulate kids for their own good, and if we do, it will always (eventually) backfire.
  As a children's librarian, the most interesting and novel aspect of the book was the argument, which makes a lot of sense when I look back at the development of my own children, that almost all toys, especially learning toys, are unnecessary and can even hinder development, because they raise a barrier between kids and the real adult world that they are desperate to enter. Fake phones, fake food, and setting kids off to one side while the real work of the household gets done gives them a sense that they are incapable of contributing and dampens their strong drive to help. It's much better to let the child into the kitchen, office, or workroom and give them a small task--pull leaves off herbs, staple papers, etc.
  As a parent, though, the biggest takeaway is to cut down on wasted words. I was lucky enough to get ahold of
  How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk when my oldest was three, and that book made a convincing argument against ever trying to use logic to compel cooperation, but Doucleff really doubles down on that concept. As long as a child is not in imminent physical danger, use as few words as possible and watch as things unfold. It's lovely to watch her own journey from being constantly hyped up and stressed, a state her daughter mirrors, to regaining a sense of calm, which is then passed straight along to her child.
• 
  Leah

  I mean.. it’s a white woman teaching brown culture. It made me deeply uncomfortable, even if she donates 30% of her profit, it isn’t her culture. It’s like cultural tourism voyeurism and more than a little cringey
  
  Where are the men and boys? All the examples of helpful children are girls helping with chores while boys play in the yard. And where are the dads?
  
  The absolutes are so click baity. No toys! But okay some toys, and give away toys every month. No praise! But okay some praise but have no praise days.
  
  Children raising children is a no from me.
  
  Shaming children by labeling them with negative character traits is a helllll no from me.
  
  I do like all the independent “let kids be helpful” part of the family stuff. But all that’s in Montessori toddler.
• 
  Maya Kukudzhanova

  ... my, this book is a bad joke.
  
  Having a PhD in chemistry and education in the wine fermenting space, the author feels presumptuous enough to advise in the area she neither has experience nor any qualifications.
  
  Verily, you can pick up better advice by visiting the playground and chatting with moms/nanas/carers, let alone professional child psychologists and pediatricians.
  
  Maybe the author did an excellent job covering the Ebola outbreak, but her "ability to perform research" does not translate to her ability to interpret the research adequately. Still, the "research" she did for this book is very controversial.
  
  The cherry on top - the author advises to scare children with the monsters, having each one for each problematic situation.
  
  This book is the worst parenting book I've read so far.
• 
  Monica

  TL;DR - Instead of this book, I recommend The Montessori Toddler, The Whole Brain Child, and The Absorbent Mind (by Maria Montessori).
  
  At first, this book seemed promising and interesting, but I’ve read a lot of parenting books, follow a lot of parents on Instagram and YouTube, and I listen to Dr. Becky Good Inside and Janet Lansbury via podcasts.
  
  This author seemingly has never heard of Montessori as a philosophy, yet it has been around for at least a hundred years. She makes absolutely no mention of it in the book, and that worried me.
  
  I mostly disliked this book because I feel the author generalizes too much - about what American parents are like, what non “Western” parents are like, and what you “should” do with your kids. However, she has no real qualifications and her book mostly uses her experiences shadowing and interviewing different families.
  
  She has a pretty extreme perspective, in my opinion. She yelled at her toddler over many things, scheduled tons of activities for her toddler to do that she disliked being a part of, hates playing on the playground with her toddler, and felt pressured to buy tons of toys and things for her daughter because that’s what she saw around her, I guess.
  
  Even when I was pregnant, I knew I didn’t want to buy way too many toys, totally babify our living room, constantly yell at my kid, or push them away when they wanted to help out around the house. So I read a lot of books and found lots of parents who share their experiences and Montessori is where I align most. There are lots of resources for those who’d like to learn about Montessori and the way it allows children to learn through doing, allows them to make mistakes, emphasizes a prepared environment to eliminate too many struggles for the child or parent/guardian, etc. Positive discipline/gentle parenting examples are also abundant these days with social media, so I was shocked that this author had never come across any of those until she visited other countries for work.
  
  I disagreed with many of her conclusions, including: a) it’s necessary and useful sometimes to pretend that monsters exist in order to scare your child into not doing something (wearing the same dress all day, opening the fridge too much, etc.) b) you should shame your child into not doing something by asking “would a baby do that?” and c) that you should get rid of all your child’s toys and activities and only do what the family would already do (obviously excess is not good, but play is the work of the child and we can provide learning opportunities to our children through open-ended and specific toys designed for them to use and learn through).
  
  Many things in this book are great, but the author touts them as things that “only non-Americans do” or things that no American parent would ever even think to do unless they read this book. There are SO many resources for parents, now, and I think for this author to claim that all of the parenting books she read to center around (what she calls) WEIRD parenting and not include anything about toddlers being naturally helpful, babies being able to learn on their own, etc. is bizarre. She also keeps using the word “train” and it makes me cringe after reading The Absorbent Mind. The Babies documentary on Netflix also highlights “Western” research and how much we know about babies and toddlers now that we have thinks like brain scans, etc.
  
  I’d give this book a pass, or recommend you skim it for the good details, but ignore the talk about how other cultures are superior, etc. because that comes off as ignorant in my opinion.
• 
  Numidica

  It's a bit like a textbook, but that's not entirely a bad thing. Michaeleen Doucleff has researched the ways in which traditional societies raise children to be responsible, happy members of their families and communities, and she has arrived at an interesting and not surprising conclusion: helicopter parenting is the opposite of what is called for to raise good children. In the Mayan communities of Mexico, the hunter-gatherer peoples of Tanzania, and the traditionally-living Inuit of the Arctic, she has found practical methods of raising children effectively, without drama, without ordering kids around from one activity to the next, while naturally growing the independence and autonomy they must have to be good adults.
  
  One of the biggest takeaways from the the child-rearing techniques of those peoples is that western parents talk too much. We give our kids instructions, tell them "don't touch that!", tell them "get ready for school!", etc ad infinitum. Doucleff's experience tells her this is the opposite of the way to get children to do what is needed. The right way involves a lesson in leadership, which dictates that parents show, not tell, and understand that their children are trying to help, even when it seems they are not. High energy from parents usually backfires, whereas low energy, or at least low energy directed at children, yields real results. The anecdotes from Tanzania, the Arctic, and the Yucatan are fascinating and illustrative of her points.
  
  In each chapter, Doucleff outlines concrete approaches to teaching children to be the helpers they really want to be, and that you want them to be. Is it work? Yes, but her point is that time invested early pays off in children who become autonomous, but tightly integrated to the family, like a team member, earlier by far than that happens (if it happens) in western culture. I have a year-old grandson, so I read this with more than casual interest, and it made me reflect on the approach my parents took, which was more directive (and less successful) with my sister, as opposed to the more laid back approach they took with me. Perhaps they were just exhausted from dealing with my sister.....
  
  Highly recommended for parents or any childcare provider.
• 
  Samantha

  I don't really recommend reading this book unless you want to be rolling your eyes 75% of the time. It can make reading it difficult! Before getting this book from the library I read her article in the Atlantic (my family members without kids forwarded it to me! How nice!) and it was pretty much more of the same, although the author is even more obnoxious in the longer format.
  
  Before I launch into more complaints, I will say that there were some good parts. Some good points mixed in with all of the useless parenting advice that ranges from the complete obvious (don't yell at your kids at bedtime) to the utterly stupid (take your kids to work! They'll learn to adapt to the work environment!). Sorry, the good stuff. Yes, it did make me think a little bit. New perspectives are always appreciated.
  
  I feel like I should win an award for reading this book, she paints herself as a genuinely terrible caregiver who do has no idea how deal with a child then visits a bunch of "primitive" villages and waxes on forever about how great the way they handle their kids is without even a pinch of skepticism. The "supermoms" (barf at that term) of the Maya village literally wake up at 5am to start pounding corn to make tortillas while their husbands are off who knows where and all Doucleff can think about is how great it is that the oldest of the 6 children help take care of the younger ones. So innovative! Nevermind that is always how it works when you have 6 kids - try talking to someone outside of your upper class bubble every once in a while.
  
  Anyway, if you already think that modern = bad and primitive = good and you want a book to reinforce your beliefs while giving you 80% crap parenting advice then this book is for you. I honestly don't know why I read it.
• 
  Katherine

  tl;dr this book is good for people who are interested in how moms in non-American cultures approach challenges of raising little kids, or if you are similar to the author in being at your wits end with your little kid but learning best from observing a whole integrated approach (cultural practices vs. pick and choose from different popular books).
  
  I think this is one of those books that's not been set up for success by its marketing. I think learning about how other cultures do things is an incredibly fascinating topic, but I also can't help but roll my eyes at yet another parenting book positioning itself as saying non-Americans do it better than Americans. And this is with me agreeing with so many of the proposed alternative strategies too! You never see a more thorough reflection about who benefits in the American system:
  * kids and young adults can pursue their own interests if they aren't contributing to collective care for younger children
  * adults who don't like kids can be away from kids
  * I expect there's a lot more diversity of approaches that American families take, as compared to cultures that strongly emphasize The One Right Way We Do Things
  * increasing (at least, I hope) expectation that boys and fathers will also develop their emotional resiliency and caregiving skills (there are a handful of involved dads included, but no older boys helping out the family in the way that the older girls do)
  etc.
  Everything's a tradeoff but there are still benefits to an individualistic society that a lot of people happily partake in, until they have babies, at which point you realize that we are definitely not meant to raise kids in such an isolated way.
  
  This should have been positioned as like, memoir of a mom who took her toddler on trips to remote areas and improved her parenting skills in an immersion environment--with helpful, realistic takeaways to bring back to the U.S. The summaries of tips are really well done actually, with the reasoning laid out and practical examples given.
  
  It's just that despite the author trying not to fetishize non-(white) American cultures (and walking the walk by giving 35% of her advance to the families and communities she stayed with), I feel like plenty of these ideas are derivable from the right American parenting books just fine. Extensive international travel was not necessary at all. Examples: The Whole Brain Child (directly referenced), How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, Free-Range Parenting, Montessori and RIE books, etc. I'm not happy about it but I definitely judged the author's research skills (via books) a lot until she shared more of her background in growing up in a "viciously angry home" and how isolated she was postpartum. Good on her for being as vulnerable and honest as she was about her approach prior to taking these trips.
  
  ============================
  
  A bit of history on American parenting:
  * by diving up powerful families and clans, the church likely set off a chain reaction that shifted the way people think and what they value...the longer a community had been exposed to the Catholic Church's marriage restrictions, the more likely people in that community thought like Westerners do--that is, they valued individualism, nonconformity, and other psychological traits unique to the West.
  * the advice books we have today, which are 'swollen descendants of terse little booklets written by eighteenth-century doctors for the use of nurse in the foundling hospitals'
  * In the 1960s, parenting experts used guilt, shame, and fear to charge American parents with a new task: stimulate, instruct, and teach children, at every moment. This high-energy, high-talking approach stuck like superglue in American culture. We take the practice for granted.
  Western culture is likely the only place where the concept of 'self-esteem' exists--and we are definitely the only culture that requires parents to maintain and cultivate it in their children...the approach requires that parents spend a great deal of time and energy monitoring their children's behavior
  * you see this same pattern repeating again and again in key aspects of Western parenting. A practice comes along at the right time in history; it becomes overhyped by the media, psychologists, pediatricians, public health experts, or all four combined; and then its importance is amplified by a product you must buy or a scary self-help book you must read.
  * Why do I feel the need to control Rosy's behavior so much? To guide and narrow her path through the world? ...I reach a simple conclusion: I think this is what a good parent does. I believe that the more I say to Rosy--and the more I instruct her--the better parent I am. I believe that all these commands will keep Rosy safe and teach her to be a respectful, kind person.
  
  Ideas I learned:
  * acomedido: it's not just doing a chore or task because someone told you to; it's knowing which kind of help is appropriate at a particular moment because you're paying attention
  * When you invite the child to help, remember the invitation is always to work together. You're not asking the child to perform the task alone.
  Praise...can cause strife among siblings, because praise breeds competition. * Psychologists have found that when young children grow up hearing frequent praise, they learn, from an early age, to compete with siblings for approval and attention from their parents.
  * When a child breaks rules, acts demanding, or seems "willful," their parents need to put them to work. The child is saying, "Hey, Mom, I'm underemployed over here and it doesn't feel good."
  
  Ideas I already agreed with:
  * Children don't see a difference between adult work and play...Parents don't need to know how to play with kids. If we get kids involved in adult activities, that's play for kids.
  * parents and other caretakers don't constantly give instructions, commands, and warnings
  * Every time you stop yourself from acting in anger, your child sees a calm way to deal with frustrations. They learn to stay composed when anger arises. So to help a child learn emotional regulation, the number one thing parents can do is learn to regulate their own emotions.
  * Instead of characterizing young children as manipulative button-pushers trying to make us angry, what if we think of them as illogical, newbie citizens trying to figure out the proper behavior?
  * See tantrums as a chance for the child to practice calming themselves down, and for you to model calmness--not the time for you, as their parent, to prove a point.
  * American parents tend to rely on verbal instruction and explanations to change children's behavior. But words are often the least effective way to communicate with children, especially young children.
  * they believe that children know best how to learn and grow. Anything a parent says--the vast majority of the time--will only get in the child's way.
  * the formula: practice, model, and acknowledge
  * multiage playgroups not only give parents extra time to themselves, they also give children a physical and mental boost [like mixed age Montessori classrooms]
  * the ideas are described as a "universal parenting approach" which sounds grandiose at first but I think it does generally track, in that brain development in kids is pretty consistent across history and the world; nonetheless, Magda Gerber and Maria Montessori were already way on top of many of these aspects thanks to observing a lot of children.
  
  Phrasings I identified with:
  * I didn't know how to be a good mother. Never before had I been so bad at something that I wanted to be good at. Never before had the gap between my actual skill and the skill level I desired been so crushingly wide.
  * In Western culture, we tend to think of motherhood as 'an instinct that comes as naturally to women as the sex drive does to men'...But in reality, parenting is a learned skill. (imo this is true, Americans are really into the idea of "listening to your gut")
  * Here in the U.S., we overestimate children's emotional abilities. We expect children at a very young age--even eighteen months to two years old--to have well-developed executive function and to understand sophisticated emotional concepts such as respect, generosity, and self-control. And when they don't demonstrate these qualities, we become frustrated and lose patience with them. Many Inuit parents view children from an opposing perspective. They *expect* children to have poor executive function and poor emotional control, and they see it as their job to teach children these skills. Basically, when a child doesn't listen or behave, the reason is simple: The child hasn't learned that particular skill yet. And perhaps, they aren't quite ready to learn it. So there's no reason for a parent to get upset or angry.
  
  Ideas I disagree with:
  * The questions aren't accusatory or denigrating [ex: "Who made this mess?" "Who's ignoring me?" "What am I, a trash can?". They aren't meant to make a child defensive. [can be effective if playful, but generally seem very easy to be accusatory/passive-aggressive and escalate a frustration]
  * parents can teach children which emotions aren't valued in the home by not responding to those emotions. [this is done by ignoring/looking past the child]
  * She accepted her discomfort. She learned to control her emotions, and she did it all by herself. [I'm skeptical, I think it's more learning to withhold expression of feelings]
  * the author does a thing of putting helicopter parenting and free-range parenting at opposite ends of a spectrum about controlling kids, which is a misunderstanding
• 
  Jill

  As a mom of six, with a degree in Child Development, I’ve read A LOT of parenting books over the years. This is probably my favorite- definitely in the top 2! I wish this book existed YEARS ago when my oldest was a baby! As I read, I recognized ways that I parented like the “superparents” and ways that I did the OPPOSITE and am experiencing the consequences. 😂 There is so much to learn from this book that I will likely read it again! I’ve already begun implementing elements of TEAM and have seen improvements already! Hunt, Gather, Parent is friendly, encouraging, and down to earth. The author is not only a gifted story teller and teacher, she seemed so authentic in sharing her struggles and successes, that I found myself wishing we could be friends. I was fascinated by how so many practices in the ancient cultures lined up with the findings shared by modern child psychologists. appreciated the application and summaries at the end of each chapter. Highly recommend!
• 
  Shelby

  OKAY. So I have a lot to say about this book and not a lot of battery left.
  It was fabulous, it truly felt like Doucleff knew the ins and outs of my relationship with my toddler, and her parenting advice from non western cultures felt so relevant and eye opening, I have not been able to stop talking about it. Seriously, I won't shut up. I knew about the inuit ways of viewing children as emotionally 'dumb' so that section was not new, but the Mayan way of building helpful children, and giving them their membership card just awed me. It made PERFECT sense. I frequently try to get my daughter to play (currently almost two) anytime I get going on chores because she always tries to undo the chore, no matter what. If it is laundry you can beet your bottom dollar she will rip folder clothes out of the basket. Dinner time? She's going for that knife. You get the picture. TEAM parenting makes so much sense, Doucleff took the time to introduce us to the families who helped her, not just writing a how to manual, and often her visual language was cheesy, but effective. but hey, she's a scientist.
  
  I marked up my copy heavily, and immediately gave it to my MIL under the guise of "OMG YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!" (but really that woman just undoes any strides we make with my daughter because #grandma.
  
  So the nitty gritty, yes I gave it five stars but it still had some problems. First off, I'd like to acknowledge some of the reviews I have seen that she "fetishizes" the non western culture. I thought long and hard, but I honest to god think that is inaccurate. She is clearly very excited about them, and in awe of their knowledge but it just seems like the appropriate response to the fact that western parenting is bananas and we are constantly told that western-ism is more advanced and better but then she got to see the truth, we suck (I Know this is pretty obvious to me already, but I never realized how bad we sucked with kids).
  
  
  Now the real problem. This book was so clearly written by a wealthy woman I just could NOT handle it. It was not overly frequent, and I believe once or twice she mentioned her obvious socioeconomic privilege, but at least 5 times she mentioned thing that were presumptuous because we are westerners we obviously have. The example that first comes to mind is that, in our western culture out 'alloparents' the nannys, baby sitters, and daycare workers who watch our kids deserve the best possible compensation etc.. OKAY. Girl we do not all have nannys, and we can not all afford daycare and babysitters. When she talked about how her postpartum depression got so bad that after a few months her therapist told her to get a nanny I just sighed. In many ways she is NOT relatable. She also acts like all westerners parent in this exact way, and ignores the facts that many low income families have multi-generational households, as well as many non white people, regardless of income. (There might be white people out there that chose this route but I am not familiar, but I also didn't try to write a book on this topic so I am fine with my current ignorance).
  
  So that being said, the parenting advice was EXCELLENT, her depiction of her time spent with those cultures was really interesting, her daughter reminds me greatly of my own, and I really did enjoy reading this book, and will recommend it to anyone with children at any age. But when I do choose to push this book, I will tell them "hey it was very obviously written by a wealthy woman and that is pretty annoying".
  
• 
  Dani

  I read the first section, lightly skimmed the next couple, and scanned through the last. Two stars because it refreshed a couple very basic parenting truths I needed to rehear, namely that (1) teaching kids to help is messy, but worth it, and (2) staying calm helps kids calm down.
  
  But otherwise, this book is not worth it, for too many reasons. I started to write them all and didn’t want to think about it anymore. 😅
  
  ADDENDUM: A few months later, I can still remember the things that bothered me most about this book.
  1. The absence of fathers, especially her own husband.
  2. The generalization of all “western parenting.” If the author had visited a Montessori school (100% sure that San Francisco has a few) or a homeschooling large family, she would have discovered at least half of the things she found by traveling the world. (And I say that as neither a homeschooler nor a Montessori advocate!)
• 
  Anya Bird

  To be fair, I didn’t realise this was a parenting book and thought it was more a history of how parenting practices developed. But it was awful. The author seems like she’s really lacking in any kind of normal parenting skills and is then absolutely amazed when other people are able to parent their children without shouting and crying. She gives ridiculous tips such as letting your child try things for themselves, wait until they are tired before putting them to bed and treat people you pay to look after your child with respect. She acts as if the whole western world use her former awful parenting approach and like basically raising children in a normal way is revolutionary. Not to mention the sexist and heteronormative language and ideas throughout the book. This really was the worst thing I’ve read in a long time.
• 
  Tessa

  Hmm.
  
  I do think some of Doucleff's conclusions are wrong because she ignored one huge glaring fact: all human beings, including children, have an inherent sin nature.
  
  Some of her conclusions also contradicted each other (for instance, that children should learn to control their emotions versus children should be free to express any emotions). But other ideas, while not original, were good and true. Yes, interacting with a wide variety of different ages is good for kids. Yes, responsibility is good for kids too!
  
  Mildly interesting audiobook.
• 
  Kelly Jerome

  Not worth the read. Author uses personal experiences as scientific evidence. She has a PhD in chemistry, not child development. I'm sure visiting other cultures and witnessing their lifestyles is very life changing, and made her parenting journey different, but the book makes her out to be a parenting expert. I'm not being mean, but honestly she's a mother of a toddler, she's surviving, just like all parents of toddlers. Lol
• 
  Edita Kazakevičienė

  „Vakarų visuomenė labai orientuota į vaikų mokymą būti nepriklausomais – patiems ryte apsirengti, patiems susitvarkyti kambarį, patiems atlikti namų darbus. Sąrašą galima tęsti. Bet toks mastymas prieštarauja šimtus tūkstančių metų trukusiai evoliucijai. Mums, žmonėms, būdingas ypatingas noras būti su kitais ir kitiems padėti — tai viena pagrindinių savybių, skiriančių mus nuo kitų primatų."
  
  Ko galėtume išmokti iš bendruomenių, kurios nesivadovauja moksliniais tyrimais, knygomis ir specialistų patarimais, o remiasi tūkstančiais metų, iš kartos į kartą perduodama vaikų auklėjimo patirtimi? Knyga mane tikrai suintrigavo ir tai buvo puiki pažintis su senosiomis kultūromis, kuri davė vertingų įžvalgų apie vaikų auginimą.
  
  Knygos autorė, chemijos mokslų daktarė, NPR skyriaus korespondentė, kartu su dukrele, apsilankė trijose bendruomenėse: majų (Meksika, inuitų (poliarinis ratas) ir hadzų (Tanzanija). Šios bendruomenės garsėja tuo, jog augina vienus laimingiausių ir sveikiausių vaikus visame pasaulyje. Prisipažinsiu, šią knygą labai paskanino antropologijos žinios.
  
  
  Pradėjus skaityti, aplankė suvokimas, kaip šiuolaikinėje kultūroje vaikai išstumti iš suaugusiųjų pasaulio. Be to, visas gyvenimas tarsi padalintas į dvi dalis: vaikų ir suaugusiųjų, pradedant maistu, daiktais, menu, dienotvarke ir baigiant laisvalaikio, paslaugų bei pramogų erdvėmis. Nuo pat mažens, vaikų gyvenimą griežtai atskyrę nuo savo, tėvai tikisi, kad atėjus "tinkamam" laikui, jų atžalos noriai prisidės prie bendros buities ir šeimos gyvenimo, tačiau dažnai nutinka atvirkščiai.
  
  Autorės stebėjimai skirtingose šeimose, puikiai atskleidžia mūsų kultūros ir vaikų auklėjimo trūkumus ir pateikia puikių idėjų ir strategijų. Pagrindines paminėsiu: kaip įtraukti vaikus į buities darbus, skatinti be pagyrimų ir apdovanojimų, lavinti emocijų valdymą ir savarankiškumą, bei, svarbiausia – nuolat stiprinti tarpusavio ryšį ir išlaikyti bendradarbiavimo atmosferą.
  
  Ne visos autorės idėjos man buvo priimtinos, tačiau knyga išties leidžia pažvelgti į šiuolaikinį vaikų auginimą iš visai kitos, žymiai platesnės perspektyvos. Be to, Michaeleen Doucleff bendravo ir su kitais žymiais vaikų auklėjimo specialistais: Daniel J. Siegel, Tina Payne Bryson, Laura Markham. Perskaičiusi patyriau, kokie mes esame vieniši tėvystėje ir kokie vieniši auga mūsų vaikai. Ir galime tik susimąstyti, kaip tai veikia mūsų vystymąsį, santykius ir emocinę būseną.
  
  
  https://www.facebook.com/profesionali...
  
  https://www.instagram.com/profesional...
  
  www.profesionalimama.wordpress.com
• 
  Meg

  I LOVED this book. I absolutely tore through it. I dog-eared so many pages I had to switch to post-it flags. Thoughtful, with tons and tons of great anecdotes, really specific examples, and referencable summaries and things to try today. I literally had results overnight trying some of the suggestions. Recommend for parents who are starting to feel like there's got to be a different way.
• 
  Trina (Between Chapters)

  This book felt so educational and empowering as I read it and I eagerly tried out some the methods right away. That's not to say that they've worked a miracle on my child though. :)
• 
  Elizabeth

  Huh: i think this has some good information, especially for new parents who may have had poor parents themselves. I think a lot of what she says, though, hasn't been lost? (Or, at least, how I feel I was raised?)
  
  So much of our contemporary problems -- including the isolation of parenting -- seem to stem from postwar attitudes towards suburbanization. Truly, it led to the isolation of families, the articulation of nuclear families instead of large extended families piled on top of one another to form a community where identity first cane from membership in the community (although she says that among some indigenous groups, alloparents are often not blood relatives), the articulation of childhood as something that needs to be extended/given/experienced, the decline of mom-n-pop shops where a child could be part of the family economy (obvs not all of this is squarely the fault of suburbs).... to name a few reasons why parenting is so difficult today.
  
  I think this book shone in some of the specific suggestions (ie, match the energy you want to model, which was astounding in the Inuit communities she visited). Modeling the behavior you wish to promote. Giving children purpose and community. Waiting, and letting the child take the initiative. All of which I think we as a society know, but somehow people keep telling us differently in order to make money.
  
  This book didn't really say much when it came to why we behave the way we do, nor was it unique in the claims. There was a very interesting piece in Time magazine about the cost of childcare (
  https://time.com/child-care-crisis/) and how it used to "take a village to raise a child," but now we have to "hire the village to raise a child." Yes, I know, Elizabeth Warren has a plan for childcare. And we should also pay teachers better salaries.
  
  Eh, sure, read it if you're having trouble getting your kid to bed. I can only comment so much, only being an "alloparent" very slightly and for short amounts of time.
  
  A note on the text: I thought it was decent of the author, to put 1/3 of her advance for the book to the communities she visited. It still smacks of some sort of tokenism.
  
  I also didn't care for her voice, having listened to the audiobook.
• 
  Katie Marquette

  I really enjoyed this book. A healthy dose of common sense really... So much of modern, specifically Western parenting is so bizarre. I'm already experiencing the gap between the stated advice and the lived reality of life with a newborn. Much of this book is aimed more toward toddlers and young children but I'm happy to be reading it now with a 3-week-old. Maybe I'll remember some of this advice in a few years. But essentially the main takeaways are that children like to be treated like people. They like to be independent and autonomous. They like to be given responsibility. They don't like to be micromanaged. And while I suppressed some inner rage reading about the unlimitable patience of the Inuit tribe and the fact that apparently many women there are silent while they give birth... There's so much wisdom to be gained from cultures that have not been distracted and exhausted by our technological consumerist culture. some of the advice will be taken with acan grain of salt of course. I don't live in a hunter gatherer society and as much as I would love t o have a tribe of women living with me while we prepare to go gather water (No joke this actually sounds great) That's not my life. My daughter's going to be spending a lot more one-on-one time with me than in a different society. This will have its ups and downs. We also probably won't be foraging for our food. It is what it is. But there are many universal lessons to be learned that can be applied across cultures: kindness, respect, patience. I also loved hearing about the author's young daughter Rosy and how all this advice panned out in real life. Spoiler, it works!
• 
  Bryan Tanner

  TL;DR:
  White, educated, San Francisco mom gets slapped in her face by her 3-year-old. Together, they travel the world gathering parenting tips from "Hunter Gatherer" moms (Mayan, Inuit, Tanzanian). Now, the daughter slaps her less.
  
  Summary:
  The author summarizes her research in an acronym that helps children feel they are part of the family "TEAM".
  T - Togetherness — A Mayan mother taught Doucleff to include children in every aspect of adult life, including housework, cooking, and other day-to-day work, and the children will be happier, calmer, and naturally helpful. No privileged kid-focused activities necessary; just include them in age-appropriate ways in the stuff you do naturally as parents.
  E - Encourage-never force — From the Inuits, Doucleff discovered that parents rarely punish or scold their children. “They believe that trying to control a child prevents their development and simply stresses the parent-child relationship.”(p. 159) Encouraging instead of forcing requires adults to control their own emotions. Parents need to “be the adult” in the relationship and consider the child’s level of emotional intelligence.
  A - Autonomy — One way the author describes autonomy is to minimize [parental] bossiness. How many times a day do you tell your child what to do? The author discovered it way too many times. The Hadzabe culture taught Doucleff how to engender autonomy within her daughter. Autonomy is different than independence. An autonomous child is still part of the whole. They have accountability to the family. A child who lives with autonomy [while feeling like an integral part of the team] learns to be self-sufficient and confident.
  M - Minimal Interference — Our western culture seems to value providing endless activities and entertainment to give our children a full life. The result is that children have very little downtime and become entitled. Parents set the schedule and tone and children have the autonomy to choose their behavior. Parents should only interfere when safety is an issue, or to teach a cultural value.
  
  General Parenting Tips I Agreed With:
  
  - Consumerism has taught us to believe that our kids need special toys. Pre-industrial world history proves that pre-fabricated toys are not necessary for a wonderful childhood. Like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, kids will find a way [to play].
  
  - Why do Mayan kids literally love to find ways to help? It is a carefully cultivated way of life that Mayans call, acamedido. Each family member views one’s self as an essential, everyday support to one another. Each family member's contributions (no matter their age) are important to the success of family life. For example, when a 3-year-old “helps” but just creates more work for the rest of the family it is considered a valuable investment. Teaching the child that their contribution is valuable is the important thing. This sense of teamwork and recognizing ways to be helpful at the moment fosters a sense of belonging.
  
  - Receiving constant verbal instruction stresses kids out. When correction is absolutely necessary, talkative Western parents could try employing more looks and fewer verbal commands. Extreme example: Doucleff witnessed a child pick up a large butcher's knife among a group of women. No one freaked out. They just watched and when the child put the knife down, one of the women was there to calmly pick up the knife and place it out of the child's reach.
  
  - Ask questions instead of giving commands. For example, if your child hands you their doll to carry, instead of saying, "no" try, "am I a donkey?" If they are about to hit an animal, ask, "Will that hurt?" The point is to get kids to think/problem-solve instead of memorizing.
  
  - Children don't see a difference between adult work and play. Parents don't need to know how to play with kids. If we get kids involved in adult activities, that's play for kids.
  
  - Every time you stop yourself from acting in anger, you model for your child a calm way to deal with frustrations. They learn to stay composed when anger arises. So to help a child learn emotional regulation, the number one thing parents can do is learn to regulate their own emotions. When they start getting out of control, bring them in and go super zen.
  
  - Multiage playgroups not only give parents extra time to themselves, they also give children a physical and mental boost [like mixed-age Montessori classrooms].
  
  - React with peace and gentleness to children. Respond to misbehavior by ignoring, redirecting, modeling, encouraging, and other kind educational methods.
  
  - Give children autonomy in a safe way that builds both their confidence and their feeling of responsibility to their family and community.
  
  - Ingredients to learn any skill: 1 cup Practice + 1 cup Modeling + 1 tsp. Acknowledging = Skill learned
  
  Review:
  The most enjoyable part of the book for me was Section 1, Ch. 2, which dethroned the unassailable wisdom of Western parenting. Apparently, the literature is built upon male psychologists and hobbyists who wrote pamphlets in the industrial era on how to run high-capacity orphanages. I especially liked the part on the origin of sleep training and beliefs build upon small-sample studies like the one "proving" peanut butter allergies.
  
  On the whole, I enjoyed Dr. Doucleff's book (4 stars). However, some critics had issues with it:
  
  - Lack of trustworthiness — Some questioned Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff's credentials. She has a Ph.D. in chemistry and has journalistic experience covering epidemics in Africa—not anthropology. Additionally, some readers were alarmed by a lack of this book's complimentary research (no mention of Montessori), leading them to wonder if she performed a robust literature review at all. Finally, some took issue with her low sample sizes—basically one mom from each of the "non-Western" cultures she visited, and her daughter, Rosie. Instead of making it clear that the reader was responsible for transferring principles (inherent to qualitative research), Doucleff generalized observations of a single participant to describe an entire people. Some also got irked by incessant references to her daughter "Ro-Ro," as if all these "dip-your-toe" techniques will work equally well among all "Western" children. Honestly, none of those things bothered me. This is valuable case study research.
  
  - Sexist — An implicit assumption of Doucleff's research and writing is that the role of parenting is universally performed by women. What is the role of fathers in parenting? This
  Fatherly article answers with another question, “who knows?” For me, the principles herein were tacitly intended to apply to all parents.
  
  - Generalization — Doucleff writes about her own household expenses as if it represents all of "Western culture". She assumes that every "Western" (American/European) parent struggles with the same things she does. She fails to acknowledge culturally diverse families in the West that have already incorporated these principles or may not struggle with her same issues. Like so many great researchers, Doucleff’s research began with “me-search.” Perhaps she could have addressed this criticism by more explicitly positioning this book as her personal self-help journey. Since I happen to resonnate with many of the same controversial, "modern" beliefs Doucleff challenged, this didn’t disrupt my reading experience either.
  
  - Harmful ideas — a couple ideas came up that were hard to transfer to western culture.
  
  1. Shaming kids by asking questions (that aren't accusatory or denigrating) [ex: "Who made this mess?" "Who's ignoring me?" "What am I, a trash can?". While these aren't meant to make a child defensive, they can so easily be accusatory/passive-aggressive and escalate frustration.
  
  2. The Celtic technique of teaching 0-6-year-olds (who have trouble distinguishing reality from fiction) about the multitude of monsters that will get them as a way to regulate behavior.
  
  3. Parents can teach children that certain emotions aren't valued in the home by not responding to those emotions. This is done by ignoring/looking past the child. I agree with these criticisms. I felt weird about them when reading.
  
  Perhaps some of these culturally-specific techniques require more skills than some Western parents have to yield a successful outcome. Perhaps some techniques require a cultural support system to ameliorate their potential negative effects. I may skip some of these.
  
  Articles about this book:
  NYT - How Do Maya Parents Handle Temper Tantrums?
  
  
  The Atlantic - There’s a Better Way to Parent: Less Yelling, Less Praise
  
  Similar Book Recommendations:
  
  The Idle Parent: Why Laid-Back Parents Raise Happier and Healthier Kids
  
  
  The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives
  
  
  How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
  
  The Montessori Toddler, The Whole Brain Child, and The Absorbent Mind (by Maria Montessori)
• 
  Sherrie

  ***Audiobook***
  
  Parenting books are always challenging to review. I mean, they're taking on an impossible task and what speaks to me and my family might be completely different to someone else. So, I guess my point is that you should take this review with a grain of salt.
  
  I really enjoyed this book and found value in some of the points she makes. Basically, the author traveled to three indigenous communities to learn about parenting. She's well aware of where western culture falls short in the parenting department and wants to understand what else is possible. The lessons she learned boil down to TEAM (I love a good acronym). Togetherness. Encouragement. Autonomy. Minimal Interference. Each chapter is summarized with ways to apply these both big and small which I found very practical.
  
  This book made me aware of how much I talk AT my children and how I can do better with that. Letting them be, giving minimal commands, and staying focused on the "macro" of our life, not the "micro" are all tools that it's good to be reminded of.
  
  Overall, I think there's a lot of good advice in this book and it's told in an engaging NPR-esque way.
• 
  Megan

  I never write reviews for books on Goodreads but I have so many thoughts about this one! Overall I think it is great but am taking off a star for a few reasons.
  
  First, the good: I love her ideas about encouraging children's innate desire to be helpful, and to bring them into our "adult world" instead of keeping adult world and kid world separate. I love the stuff about intrinsic motivation. Having taught elementary school for five years I feel like this is something educators talk about constantly and the frustrating part is for all the experts telling us how crucial it is no one seems to have cracked the code on how to actually tap into it. I love that the author clearly outlines why external influences like sticker charts, rewards, and punishments are often ineffective and can actually weaken intrinsic motivation. I also really connected with her passages about praise- how we as parents can really overdo it with praise and how it often does more harm than good. I loved all of the passages about frustration and anger (one quote about this that I love and think about a lot: "The maintenance of equanimity under trying circumstances is the essential sign of maturity, of adulthood"). There is a passage in the book where she talks about living in an Inuit community and observing parents who are experts at being calm with their toddlers. These passages were my favorite parts and are the ones I think about most when reflecting on this book.
  
  The not-so-good: I came away from this book wondering, "Is play important?" It sort of feels like the author implies at several points (especially at the beginning when she is living in a Mayan community) that play is unimportant or at least overrated and not as important as teaching kids how to contribute and be in adult world. This is counter to everything I've ever learned in terms of early childhood education; I was taught that play is super important if not the most important thing young kids do. The author also recommends throwing away most of your kids' toys and not going on "child-centered activities" (ex: visits to the zoo, children's museums, etc) which seems extreme? The author states several times throughout the book that she finds most child-centered activities soul-crushing and awful and I think assumes all parents feel this way too. I couldn't help but think several times when she would moan about eating overpriced pizza at a theme park, "What if parents genuinely enjoy doing those things with their kids?" She seems to suggest it's to kids' detriment when we center our lives around them, which is something that I think happens naturally when you have children, and isn't necessarily a bad thing. I also felt at times that she was vague about what realistic expectations are for children in terms of behavior.
  
  There's a lot of parenting books out there (many of which are filled with conflicting advice) and sometimes the wealth of the information you get as a parent can be overwhelming, and frankly paralyzing! Overall I would recommend this book to new parents (especially parents of toddlers or very young kids), it's a fascinating read and full of good ideas.