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Children First
Children First is the most important and urgent book on childcare we have yet had from the internationally admired author of the classic Your Baby & Child.
In it Penelope Leach calls on us as individuals and as a nation to make good on the promise of our endless rhetoric about the importance of family by creating the indispensable economic and social supports for children that are now so tragically missing.
She asks us -- in our legislation, in our policy-making, in our industrial might -- to think of children first and thereby let a new rush of sanity and health into our society.
She presents us with the paradox that after spending spectacular millions and employing the most sophisticated medical science to help children come into the world, our society turns its back on them in the very years during which they are developing. She shows us how, while paying constant lip service to family, we fail to acknowledge the difficulties of parenting in the nineties and to make sure that conditions essential to the raising of children are available to parents.
It is Penelope Leach's contention that what parents do for their children -- what they are able to do -- depends on what society actually wants, approves and encourages. And, in a powerful argument against complacency, she presents specific steps by which we, as members of society, can move to fashion a new economic priority for all children; to make the child central in the fight against poverty and inequity; to achieve a rational standard of human rights for our children; and to find, in our own lives, effective new approaches to positive parenting.
Provocative, passionate, courageous, Children First is a groundbreaking book. It has the extraordinary potential to affect the lives not only of our own children but also of the children that they themselves will have in years to come.
In it Penelope Leach calls on us as individuals and as a nation to make good on the promise of our endless rhetoric about the importance of family by creating the indispensable economic and social supports for children that are now so tragically missing.
She asks us -- in our legislation, in our policy-making, in our industrial might -- to think of children first and thereby let a new rush of sanity and health into our society.
She presents us with the paradox that after spending spectacular millions and employing the most sophisticated medical science to help children come into the world, our society turns its back on them in the very years during which they are developing. She shows us how, while paying constant lip service to family, we fail to acknowledge the difficulties of parenting in the nineties and to make sure that conditions essential to the raising of children are available to parents.
It is Penelope Leach's contention that what parents do for their children -- what they are able to do -- depends on what society actually wants, approves and encourages. And, in a powerful argument against complacency, she presents specific steps by which we, as members of society, can move to fashion a new economic priority for all children; to make the child central in the fight against poverty and inequity; to achieve a rational standard of human rights for our children; and to find, in our own lives, effective new approaches to positive parenting.
Provocative, passionate, courageous, Children First is a groundbreaking book. It has the extraordinary potential to affect the lives not only of our own children but also of the children that they themselves will have in years to come.
- GenresParentingNonfiction
303 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1994
2 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Penelope Leach
81 books22 followersDr. Penelope J. Leach (born Penelope Jane Balchin) is a British psychologist who writes extensively on parenting issues from a child development perspective.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 5, 2008
Such an informative read. I have recomended to to many.
October 10, 2020
I loved this book. Penelope Leach is an expert in one of my fields, child development, as well as one of my favorite authors in that field. Her style is a fine balance between warmth and authority. In this book she hits on some major points including how much a new baby really does impact an adult's life and how we should expect as much since children are people too.
Overall, this book was an eye-opening read through the lens of a parent and health professional. My husband also gleaned a lot through the lens of an employer just from my summaries and conversations.
After reading this book, it is much more noticeable to me how many things are biased against children and families. Now it's so annoying. Sometimes I just want to scream out loud, "Children are people! They have rights and feelings! Stop being so rude and discriminatory! Aaaargh!"
To address some reviewers who state the last part of the book seems too unrealistic for real life, I just like to ask if we (living in a first world country) can't decide our own goings on, who can?
Overall, this book was an eye-opening read through the lens of a parent and health professional. My husband also gleaned a lot through the lens of an employer just from my summaries and conversations.
After reading this book, it is much more noticeable to me how many things are biased against children and families. Now it's so annoying. Sometimes I just want to scream out loud, "Children are people! They have rights and feelings! Stop being so rude and discriminatory! Aaaargh!"
To address some reviewers who state the last part of the book seems too unrealistic for real life, I just like to ask if we (living in a first world country) can't decide our own goings on, who can?
January 15, 2019
This is a dense book. To be honest, some parts felt like a slog. However, the last chapter was terrific; Leach envisions realistic changes to societal structure that would let parents spend more time parenting, give kids the support that they need, reduce the environmental impact of our commutes, and enliven suburbs to make them less boring and more person-centric.
Everyone should read the last chapter. Everyone should read the first two chapters (on gender roles and how society looks at families). You probably don't need the rest of the book unless you are a parent or an educator; read it if you want.
Everyone should read the last chapter. Everyone should read the first two chapters (on gender roles and how society looks at families). You probably don't need the rest of the book unless you are a parent or an educator; read it if you want.
October 23, 2013
"The women's movement has dismantled many barriers that protected men's powerful public lives, but gender equality is still defined as sameness, and the model for it is still a male one." p 27
"Early-years education is distorted by preparation for school." p 28
"Newborn babies want nothing that they do not need and therefore do not know how to demand anything more than they need; what they ask for they DO need. Having their needs met, readily and kindly throughout the first days and weeks, teaches them that this new world and its caring adults are benevolent and can be trusted; that trust is the basis of confidence in other people and in self, from infancy to death." p55
"Early-years education is distorted by preparation for school." p 28
"Newborn babies want nothing that they do not need and therefore do not know how to demand anything more than they need; what they ask for they DO need. Having their needs met, readily and kindly throughout the first days and weeks, teaches them that this new world and its caring adults are benevolent and can be trusted; that trust is the basis of confidence in other people and in self, from infancy to death." p55
February 12, 2013
Parenting; I iz doin it rite, mostly by instinct. I like what she has to say about the needs of children. I think she misses the mark a bit on some things, but she gets it. Also the main solution that is discussed right at the end of the book is way hippy dippy and while it sounds great on paper would SO not work in practice.
July 31, 2009
Here's a book to make working women really feel like sh*t.
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July 8, 2011case/west haven
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews