Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear

by Kim Brooks

"Part memoir, part history, part documentary, part impassioned manifesto...it might be the most important book about being a parent that you will ever read." --Emily Rapp Black, New York Times bestselling author of The Still Point of the Turning World

"A beautifully told, harrowing story..."--Heather Havrilesky

One morning, Kim Brooks made a split-second decision to leave her four-year old son in the car while she ran into a store. What happened would consume the next several years of her life and spur her to investigate the broader role America's culture of fear plays in parenthood. In Small Animals, Brooks asks, Of all the emotions inherent in parenting, is there any more universal or profound than fear? Why have our notions of what it means to be a good parent changed so radically? In what ways do these changes impact the lives of parents, children, and the structure of society at large? And what, in the end, does the rise of fearful parenting tell us about ourselves?

Fueled by urgency and the emotional intensity of Brooks's own story, Small Animals is a riveting examination of the ways our culture of competitive, anxious, and judgmental parenting has profoundly altered the experiences of parents and children. In her signature style--by turns funny, penetrating, and always illuminating--which has dazzled millions of fans and been called "striking" by New York Times Book Review and "beautiful" by the National Book Critics Circle, Brooks offers a provocative, compelling portrait of parenthood in America and calls us to examine what we most value in our relationships with our children and one another.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Adult, Book Club, Biography Memoir

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 21, 2018

About the author

Kim Brooks is the personal essays editor at Salon. Her first novel, The Houseguest, will be published in 2016 by Counterpoint Press and her memoir, Small Animals: A Memoir of Parenthood and Fear, will be published in 2017 by Flatiron Books/ Macmillan. Her stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, One Story, Five Chapters and other journals and her essays have appeared in Salon, New York Magazine, and Buzzfeed. She lives in Chicago with her husband and children.

Reviews

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I appreciated, in part, the message of this book, I am also conflicted in my feelings towards the author's view of her actions, which led to a pretty lengthy involvement with child welfare services. The premise of the book is that we treat our children as if they were made of glass, and want to protect them from every little injury instead of allowing them to experience the world in all its forms, good and bad. Putting kids in a bubble stunts their ability to interact meaningfully with the world around them. I wholeheartedly agree, and letting my 7-year old daughter explore even if she might get hurt is hard for me. But, but, but. There is a HUGE difference between saying "we can't protect our children from everything, accidents will happen" and saying "because I can't protect them from everything, why bother trying to protect them from anything." I can't keep my daughter from scraping her knee after falling off her bike but I can protect her from being hurt as a result of improper supervision. I do that by not leaving her home alone, where she could hurt herself on the stove, with the knives, with the cleaning chemicals, by wandering out into the street. My level of supervision will change as she gets older. What isn't age appropriate now may be appropriate when she's 10, 12, 16. We have to be able to judge our child's limits in their ability to protect themselves under certain circumstances. We have to be able to judge a situation, not by the statistical probability of an injury or negative incident occurring, but by whether we could have protected our children in a particular circumstance by changing our behavior.

This is where my feelings about the author's actions and her feelings toward them diverge. Kim's story is that, while visiting her parents, she and her husband were in a rush to make it to the airport on time so as not to miss their flight. They were traveling with two small children, and one of them had misplaced a pair of headphones, the absence of which would have caused a meltdown in said child. In order to avoid the meltdown and skip the step of having to search for them unsuccessfully, Kim decided to just run to Target and buy a new pair. Her 4-year old son said he wanted to go with her and, even though she was in a huge hurry, in order to avoid an argument she said yes. She drove to Target, parked, and, when her son said he didn't want to go in the store, she said okay and left him in the car. She says she was only in the store for 10 or 15 minutes (which I have a hard time believing but we'll go with her version of events) and when she came out there was a woman taking pictures of her car with her son in it. She later finds out that there is a child welfare investigation and that she is potentially facing charges (I assume of child endangerment).

Her life is a nightmare for the next year or so, and she doesn't understand why what she did warrants such an intense reaction. She spends an untold number of pages trying to justify her actions - she was young, she was in a hurry, they were in a safe neighborhood, it was only a few minutes, the weather was mild, it was more convenient, the likelihood of her child actually getting kidnapped is minimal, her son couldn't unbuckle himself, etc. And anyway, nothing did happen, so what's the big deal? I'm a child welfare attorney. I represent parents whose children have been removed from them by DHS because of negligence. I have heard every single excuse she comes up with. Negligence doesn't only include actions (or inactions) that actually cause injury. It also includes behavior that COULD HAVE resulted in injury. If you allow a child molester to babysit your child and your child doesn't get molested you don't get to say your behavior wasn't negligent just because the injury didn't happen. THANK GOD it didn't, but your child never would have been put in that position if not for your behavior. Negligence isn't comparable to accidental injuries during the course of normal childhood activities like riding a bike.

When deciding whether your child is old enough to stay in the car alone while you run into a store you have to ask yourself if your child is capable of protecting himself if something, ANYTHING, were to happen while you were away. The fact that her son couldn't get himself out of his seat makes it worse, not better, for her to have left him in the car alone. Kidnapping isn't the only possibility. The parked car could be hit by another car speeding through the parking lot. It could catch on fire. It could become unbearably hot. And though you can't predict whether something like that might happen, you can predict your child's ability to help himself. If you know your child can't get himself out of his seat, and the car somehow catches on fire or rolls into a ditch, and your child gets injured, YOU HAVE BEHAVED NEGLIGENTLY TOWARD YOUR CHILD. But for your actions, your child would not have been injured. Causation is sometimes difficult to understand in child neglect cases but if you are having to bend the laws of time and space in order to justify yourself then you know, deep down, that what you did was wrong and you're just trying to minimize how harshly people judge you for it. Saying that, in hindsight, you would do things differently in order to avoid the negative consequences you had to face doesn't acknowledge the actual issue at stake here, which is that you made a poor decision that put your child in harm's way. It's important to make the distinction because it dictates your future behavior in regards to whether you are able to keep your children safe. I don't think Kim gets that distinction. Probably just because she doesn't want to.

My final problem with the book is its glaring omission of any mention of the author's privilege due to her race and class. The consequences she had to face were actually pretty mild compared to what a woman of color or a woman in poverty would have faced. Not only is this assertion supported by research, I witness it every day. The readers find a way to forgive or justify her actions, just like she has, without ever considering that if you change the race or income level of the person engaging in the behavior society has no problem branding them a bad mother.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[QOH · Rating 4 out of 5]

True story 1: When my daughter was about eight, we walked past a car where a tween was reading a book with the windows down. My daughter gasped, worried about the kid being alone in the car, in the middle of a Safeway parking lot. "That was normal when I was growing up," I said. "I used to ask to stay in the car so I could read."

True story 2: Every female lawyer I know is terrified of her jurisdiction's version of child protective services. None of the male lawyers I know are. We all have the same due process rights and know the system, so why the difference? I chalked it up to women being more anxious than men and let it go.

After reading this and reflecting, I think there's more to it. As women we are more anxious about being labeled bad parents...but only because it's much more likely that someone's going to come along and tell a woman she's a bad parent than someone's going to come along and tell a man he's a bad parent. A mom leaves a kid in the car for five minutes while she goes to the store? Bad mom who doesn't deserve to have a child. A dad leaves a kid in the car for five minutes while he goes to the store? Ah, he just didn't know better. The kid's okay, so no harm, no foul, right?

It was emotionally tough, reading this book (not that it stopped me from zipping through it as soon as it arrived). It made me anxious--these are some of my biggest fears--but also angry and frustrated; I whole-heartedly agree in the idea of free range parenting but am too chicken to put it in practice.

[Mehrsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was at a target once and I saw a young mother in front of me in tears because the cops were coming for her for having left her kid in the car. An older woman had called the cops and the target employees were all on the other woman's side. I leapt to her defense. The kid was fine. It was cool out. She had run in to get diapers. She had the baby in there with her. She'd left another grown kid in the car.

I had three kids in New York city and I would let them run around alone in the playgrounds while I sat and watched. Other moms hovered everywhere their kids played. Often, someone would ask "who's kid is this?" pointing to one my girls who was happily playing alone. Another time, I let my daughter walk across the street (not in NY this time, but a quiet college town). She was going two houses across the street while I watched from the window. She was 8. A woman rolled up in a car next to her, demanded she get in the car and drove her the 100 feet to my house and walked up to deliver her to me. I informed her that she had put my daughter at more risk by forcing her into her car than she had been crossing the street. My daughter said she protested, but the busybody would not be deterred.

I have observed exactly what she's describing countless times as a mother of three. In schools, playgrounds, and among parents. It is madness and it's hurting kids and moms. I am so glad that books like this are coming out and challenging the craziness of parenting today. Let your kid be free and learn how to make decisions. I mean, obviously, do not keep your kid in a hot car. I've never left my kids in cars either because it was unsafe or because I worried that people would call the cops, but all the other stuff--kids are fine.

Critiques of the book:

1. I didn't love the memoir bits as much as the parts where she talks to the experts, which is weird because usually I feel the exact opposite. I usually feel like I can get the research from elsewhere and I just want to hear about the person. But I guess as much as I related to the problem she describes, I did not relate to her views on parenting. Even as she is writing about how people are overly anxious about parenting, I felt like she was too. She seems to be overdoing it, but perhaps she depicts herself that way to relate to her intended audience.

2. I don't think I agree with her about the causes of this phenomenon. Jonathan Haidt's new book The Coddling of the American Mind and a few others also blame the overemphasis on a few gruesome abductions as causing this overprotectedness. I think those were symptoms of an already building trend as opposed to its causes. I think what caused this is our discomfort with women in the workplace and a redirected misogyny. I think there were other social causes as well--the focus on super predators and the paranoia about crime-ridden ghettos. White flight created an insecure population that I think led to some guilt and projection. Anyway, those theories may not be right, but I don't buy the standard narrative

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having kids has always seemed to me to be a form of madness. Kim Brooks' book shows that if you were not already a little bonkers when you had kids, then virtually every feature of America's fear-filled, outrage-driven, misogynistic culture and hyper-competitive dedication to capitalism are structured to drive you to that point.

"Unfortunately, just as there is little individual Americans feel that they can do about the threats of climate change, rising income inequality, and the dehumanizing effects of automation and globalization, people in the 1970s and 1980s felt they could do little to protect themselves from what seemed to be the encroaching threats of the day. 'Focusing on threats to children,' [Steven] Mintz suggests, 'may have provided a solution to this psychological dilemma. Anxiety about the future could be expressed in terms of concerns for children's safety,' which, after all, feels more manageable" (89).

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only recently realized the extent to which helicopter parenting in America has become the norm, the expectation, sometimes even in the law of the land. That the definition of a “good parent” now requires keeping an eye on your child at every moment. That kids’ hanging out with friends has been formalized into “playdates,” typically arranged by parents and involving play directed by at least one parent, often with both kids' parents present. That parents hover over their children on playgrounds, issuing a constant stream of instructions and intervening in their interactions with other children. That parents consider it highly risky to allow kids to play in their own yards unsupervised, and in some cases bystanders will call the police if they see it; walking around a suburban middle-class neighborhood in the daytime is right out. That parents’ decisions about the sort of childhood their kids will have are driven by fear, of improbable catastrophes or Child Protective Services or both. In retrospect this should have been evident. There are kids living in my neighborhood, I think; I only ever see them going from house to car and back.

It’s all driven by fear, even though this is the safest time to be a kid in American history. Parents are paranoid about kidnapping, despite the fact that stranger kidnappings are extremely rare (and usually involve teenagers). A kid would have to be alone in public for tens or hundreds of thousands of years before they’re statistically likely to be kidnapped. As for the actual risks to kids? Car accidents are a big one, killing over a thousand American kids each year, yet harried parents will pile kids into a car rather than letting them walk or bike or take public transit alone. Childhood obesity and diabetes are on the rise, with 1/3 of the country likely to be diabetic by 2050, likely in large part because kids don’t get to run around anymore and instead spend their time staring at screens, losing out on exercise as well as opportunities to explore and develop social skills. Depression and anxiety are increasing among the young too, and no wonder, when they’re taught that the world is a terrifying place and simultaneously given no power over their own lives.

What a terrible time to be a child! How can they become independent, self-reliant adults when their parents dictate their every move? How will they acquire good judgment or self-confidence without the opportunity to take risks and make meaningful decisions? How will they learn social skills when they see other kids only in highly structured, adult-organized environments, and with adults mediating their every interaction? How will they develop creativity without down time? How will they develop resilience without being allowed to fail or be hurt? How will they recognize obsession and controlling behavior from a romantic partner as early warning signs of abuse, when this is how their parents showed love? Is it surprising that the more powerless kids become, the more they bully each other? And what about simple enjoyment of childhood; isn’t kids’ enjoyment of the first 18 years of their lives important enough for parents to learn to tolerate some anxiety?

This book delves into the culture of fear around parenting today. Brooks was a helicopter parent herself, but one day she was arrested for leaving her four-year-old son in the car for a few minutes on a cool, overcast day while she ran into the store. Her ordeal led her to learn more about what is going on with parenting in America, to examine why she and so many others are so fearful, and the consequences of it. How we got here makes sense: the news media broadcasts attention-grabbing headlines to draw in viewers; exposing oneself to stories about parents' worst nightmares makes the worst seem common and likely; parents respond, irrationally but understandably, by curtailing kids’ freedoms; once this becomes common, it’s expected, and even parents not inclined to be paranoid feel it is the norm and don’t want to feel that they’re putting their kids at risk, while others know their kids are safe but are forced to toe the line anyway for fear of someone calling CPS.

There are some terrible stories in this book – like the single mother (much less privileged than the author) who let her 9-year-old daughter play in a park with friends (and of course lots of adults present) during the day while the mom was at work . . . not only was the mother arrested and interrogated, but her daughter was taken to a group home for two weeks without being able to see her mother, and ended up afraid to even leave the house. Of course this doesn’t happen to most families, but we’ve created a culture in which parents are expected to be always monitoring and focused on their kids, to the point that they have no lives of their own (a great example for the little ones I’m sure). How dare they do something as simple as running into Starbucks alone for their own convenience! They must not want to be parents, since they clearly don’t want to watch their kids!

At any rate, I found this to be a well-written memoir and an accessible work of nonfiction (short and engaging enough that hopefully even parents consumed by the demands of shuttling kids to half a dozen activities will be able to read it!). It’s a reflection on the state of parenting today rather than a how-to book; the author talked to experts as well as dissecting her own attitudes and decisions, but stops short of offering solutions. I do wish she’d talked to more kids, or young adults raised by helicopter parents; she only interviews one teenager, and he’s an unusual case. Mostly she talks about the consequences of today’s parenting on parents themselves. She discusses interesting studies, writes about the way people are judgmental toward mothers in particular, and has insightful commentary on related subjects (like whether being a stay-at-home mom versus a working mom is really a choice for most people. Her answer: not really, but at the time she still turned necessity into a virtue when discussing her own “choice”). I hope lots of people read this book, and that it will be a wake-up call.

[Anne ✨ Finds Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book resonated with me in a big way! As a mom of two now teens, I have lived through, and still experience many of the anxious feelings that Kim Brooks shares as she relates her experiences parenting in today's American society. The worries, pressures, expectations, and judgment. The polarizing platforms of helicopter parenting vs. free range parenting. It's seriously overwhelming! But it's also seriously important dialogue for moms/parents raising kids today to think about and understand.

This book is so much more than just about Kim's personal experiences, as traumatic and emotional as they were. (Kim was videotaped by a 'concerned' bystander for leaving her 4yr old son in their locked car for 5mins, on a mild day/windows cracked open, in a parking lot outside a store while she dashed in to pick something up. She is criminally charged by police, and required to do community service ).

Kim Brooks doesn’t just tell her own story here, she researches and explores a broader topic of how an increased societal focus on 'safety/protection' has come about, and the repercussions this focus has had on today's kids. The whole subject is absolutely fascinating to consider, regardless of where on the parenting spectrum you fall, or how you feel about Kim's actions/what played out.

As the blurb to this book says, this work is "part memoir, part history, part documentary, part impassioned manifesto". Kim does an admirable job of navigating these very tricky waters, giving us a deep look at all the considerations, and definitely gives THIS MOM (me) a lot to think about!

Audio Notes: Kim narrates her own book, and she does a great job. She’s passionate, energetic, and inquisitive. She looks to facts to support ideas, she pokes, ponders, and asserts, yet she remains respectful of others opinions. ! I really enjoyed listening to her tell her story!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one with mixed feelings. I developed an early dislike for the author...in the early pages she comes across as a left-wing waffler with that cocky self-righteous virtue-signaling approach to life, complete with sedatives and therapists. I wasn't far in before I predicted that eventually this story line would be warped to include racism and white privilege. I wasn't wrong.

Long story short, Ms Brooks leaves her four year old son in the car while she runs into a store to pick up a set of headphones. The way she tells it, the vehicle was never out of her sight. One of our modern day vigilantes appeared on scene, noticed the boy alone in the vehicle, filmed him with the ever-present movie camera we all keep in our pocket, and turned Brooks in to the police. Having stirred the pot the vigilante disappeared safe in his or her anonymity.

Now I don't think that Brooks should be pilloried for this. The boy was never in danger, nothing bad happened to him, and she was gone only 5 minutes. It's not like she left him there for hours while she was guzzling martinis in a bar. What bothers me is that Brooks left the kid in the car because she was afraid he'd have a tantrum if she insisted that he accompany her. So the boy was left there because of indecisive, basically bad parenting. Something to improve on, maybe, but not a criminal act. Worse than Brooks is the anonymous weasel that turned her in to the cops. If you're concerned about the boy, stick around to make sure he's safe. If the mother (or father) doesn't appear in a reasonable period of time, then give the authorities a call. Otherwise, cut your fellow human some slack. If they made these anonymous tipsters appear to testify in court I'm sure the stats would drop off considerably.

Anyway, the cops didn't have the same tolerant view of Brooks' parenting and she wound up getting charged for neglect. She was understandably extremely distraught and questioned her value as a parent. I know the feeling well: a long time ago my two year old daughter was brought home by a neighbor who had intercepted her toddling down the hill toward the ominously named Dead Man Bay. I had no idea she could open the door! Anyway, the mortification is still real over 30 years later so I know exactly how Brooks felt.

Brooks' mortification turned to curiosity and she started doing research to resolve a few questions, like: "When did we start bubble wrapping kids?" or "How much danger is an unsupervised child really in, anyway?" or "When did we start criminalizing everyone? I found that she did a fairly thorough job in researching the material, and she tells the story in a way that informs the reader and maintains interest at the same time.

The only area where I found Brooks tedious....well, several areas actually, is that she seems to me to be an emotional basket case, getting the vapors when served with her papers, crying or screaming on the phone to her lawyer....I can see how her four-year-old was able to stare her down and get her to leave him in the car. And of course the virtue-signaling: the distress over a judge telling a young black man he was improperly dressed for court. What does the man's race have to do with it? I worked in a courthouse until very recently, and I can assure you that a judge will tell anyone, regardless of color or status, that they are improperly dressed if that happens to be the case. That includes lawyers and police. She merely wanted to point out that a white judge was "chiding" a black man. Maybe she was angling for an interview on one of the morning television shows hosted by a coven of odious women who sit around and interrupt each other and get sued. And bemoaning the fact that the court would treat her lightly because she is white...come on, man!

So where I didn't care for Brooks as a person, I have to be fair and say that she raised a lot of interesting points and presented it all in a coherent fashion.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got a free copy of this one from a goodreads giveaway. As a parent of three elementary school children whose parenting style has gone from helicopter (not necessarily by my choice, being a dad) to free-range over the last nine years, this book resonated. The author tells her story of being a do-everything-and-be-constantly-stressed-out mom who once left her child in a car for a few minutes while running an errand and was filmed by a "good Samaritan" and turned in to the cops and subsequently made a criminal (this is not a spoiler-you'll find out in the first paragraph). This forced her to think about 21st century American style parenting in which children are protected from everything as parents live in a constant state of fear; of injury, kidnapping, lack of opportunity if each child is not enrolled in every bankrupting summer and after school program, and maybe most importantly is the fear of the judgment of other parents when you tell them you let the kids walk around the neighborhood or go to the park by themselves. This is a timely book for parents who love their children so much that they will protect them from everything including the ability to be a functional adult. This dad liked the book a lot, but I think moms will like it much more since they are generally harder on themselves.

[Kevin Clouther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Structurally, this book is more effective than what I've seen in other parenting books, though one needn't be a parent to be moved. Because the author is a fiction writer, the narratives are thoughtful, well paced, and selective in detail. She complements these stories with interviews and research, and in these instances, she allows the authorities to articulate their positions at length, rather than fit their arguments into her own worldview. The cumulative effect is a readable, sobering, honest book, sociological in nature and literary in spirit. It's also pretty funny.

[Ericka Clou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though there is a large memoir aspect to this book, I think it's an extremely important nonfiction book about the current state of parenting in America. It's important from a sociological, psychological, and also legal perspective. As an attorney and as an American, I'm horrified that people are being charged with laws that the legislature has specifically failed to pass, and that selective enforcement perpetuates all of the worst biases in society: racism, sexism, and the still-unnamed poverty injustice.

As a person who believes in and appreciates science, I am persuaded by her argument about the difference between perceived dangers and real statistically verifiable dangers.

As a mom, I'm exhausted, anxious, and often confused. I just moved to Nebraska from the East Coast, and most of the children here appear to free-range. I'm not comfortable to let the children wander as much as my neighbors do, and I'm also aware that their children are better prepared to be free-range because they've already been at it for a while now. The kids seem really self-possessed. The other parents' freedom seems amazing and I'm super jealous. I'm just going to wait a little longer before I start testing the limits around here. In the meanwhile, it would be nice if there were a real national dialogue about these parenting issues.

[Joy Matteson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was an incredibly difficult book to review. I'm extremely grateful that Ms. Brooks shared her story of what happened after she left her 4 year old in a Target parking lot for a few minutes to grab a pair of headphones to prevent a toddler meltdown, provoking a stranger to record the leave-taking and call the police to report her. Her story, and apparently more and more moms (less dads, apparently) are finally sharing these stories instead of hiding behind the cultural shame of this. That being said, perhaps a pro/con list will benefit my review, and I can externally process the implications of what I just read.

The good:
1) Kim Brooks is a talented writer. She digs deep into the cultural norms of the idolatry of motherhood, and exposes it for the sham it really is. The judging parents on the playground, the moms who raise an eyebrow at formula feeders, and the best sleep method. She questions, "Have we hit peak parenthood?" In the Information Age, we are inundated with parenting information overload like no generation has been before. Our parents relied more on instinct and only probably read a few parenting books here and there. Now, Information overload can easily create a fear based society of terrified parents (and grandparents). Are we now just going to go downhill from here? She raises some important questions as she struggles to understand her place as a mother in a world where she feels constantly scrutinized by every move she makes in public with her children.

Which leads me to...the not so good:
2) DAMN. This woman is Anxious with a capital A. She mentions she is a product of anxious parents, and details her extreme anxiety BEFORE the police incident. Like, probably THE most anxious writer I've read in a very long time, and probably the most anxiety-inducing parenting books I've read, as a result. It's true she raises important points, but it's like every page is another instance of her reiterating the DANGER of raising kids today. I couldn't help but feel my own anxiety rise to meet hers, and that is not the effect that I think she's intending for her audience. Let's not all collectivize our parental anxiety. Let's kick it to the curb, man. It doesn't help us be better parents.
3) She details a conversation on page 171 where she's blissfully child-free for a few days in New York, and a journalist friend asks her, "Would you say having children changes your quality of life?" And the author of this book responds "I guess I would say that when you have small children, you have no quality of life."
WTF?
I can accurately respond not just as a full time working mom of a toddler, but many of my parent friends with tinies, this doesn't have to be true. YOU are in charge of your quality of life. Do toddlers make it harder to find time to yourself? YES! Does it mean you gotta fight like hell to get quality of life? YES!

This is my main issue with the book. She is incredibly detailed oriented talented writer, and raises some vital questions about what kind of generation are we raising if we schedule the hell out of their lives and avoid all risks. But she's so constantly self-sabotaging, constantly looking for people to judge her parenting even before the police incident, which only reinforced that people are out to GET HER as a neglectful mom. It colors her perspective.

Anyway. Thanks for reading! I do recommend the read for parents AND people with tinies in your life. Let's not be a helicopter society. Let's let our kids fail, take risks, and let them trust in their own confidence.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is possibly the best book I've read all year. Brooks captures perfectly what it is like to be a parent in modern-day America, how the majority of your decisions are spurred by fear — fear of what will happen to your child if you don't do everything correctly and/or fear of what others parents will say or do if they believe you aren't parenting correctly. Through the framework of her own personal experience getting charged with "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" for leaving her 4-year-old alone in the car for five minutes (on a cool day, safely strapped in watching a video), she explores why our kids can't have the same independence we or our parents did even though the world is actually safer, and what it's doing to us and to our kids.

Brooks delves into all different facets of this dilemma, including the ways in which privilege of class and race differentiate who can measure up to the "standard" of perfect parenting and who receives the most severe consequences for trusting their children to exist independently in public spaces the way children of previous generations did. She talks about the historical trends that led us to this bizarre point where any amount of unsupervised time is seen as negligence. She explores the ways that the modern-day culture of parental judgment impacts fathers and mothers differently, and also shares fascinating research about how moral assessment and risk assessment provide a vicious feedback loop — children are seen as being more at risk if the subject thinks the parent's reason for being away from them is unjustified, and the greater assessment of risk makes the parent's decision even more immoral.

Brooks doesn't exactly leave the reader with hope (you can't really say, "Forget what other people think!" when you may face criminal charges or even lose your children for giving them more independence than someone else thinks you should) but she does offer commiseration and reassurance that yes, this really is as bananas as it seems. The people she interviews provide some small bits of advice, from what to do if the police are called on you to how to convince the parents around you that not giving your kids more freedom is actually more detrimental than tightly controlling them. That said, I still think it will be a very, very long time before I leave my child alone in a car for more than the few seconds it takes to return a shopping cart to the corral — not because I think he's in any danger whatsoever (I don't) but because I don't ever want to face what Brooks went through and jeopardize the possibility that I can adopt another child in the future.

I can only hope that if this book gains enough traction, maybe we can have a national conversation that makes "free range parenting" seem like less of a fringe movement and more of the gold standard for our children. Until then, I guess I'll just be grateful that whatever judgment I might face for my parenting decisions, at least no one's called the cops on me. Yet.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't a long read, but it packs a punch. Brooks recounts her personal story of being "caught" leaving her young son in the car, in a Target parking lot as she ran in to get headphones for their airplane flight that day. Someone recorded the child in the car unattended. Later she was contacted by the police, pending a charge of child negligence. Was she a negligent parent for leaving the child in the car? I've certainly done it and I got called out for it by a stranger. Our parents most certainly did it. Brooks takes this story as a jumping off point to investigate the role of fear in parenting. Fear of what could happen to our children rules our society. And our kids are paying a steep price. Some argue that it is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to a child's physical safety. However, we must balance safety and risk. If we really wanted to keep kids absolutely safe, we would never drive them anywhere. Yet, women (mostly women) aren't getting arrested for driving their kids around. They are however getting arrested for letting their children out of their site and a little bit of freedom. This isn't fair to our children and it is harming them. A line from the book that has stuck with me, which I won't quote because I wont' be exact, is that kids deserve the freedom to be unobserved.

I am on the social neighborhood site Nextdoor. I see so much fear on that site. People freaking out because they see little girls playing on the sidewalk, likely in front of their house. OMG! They could be kidnapped. There are so many psychos around these days - better to be safe than sorry. Yes, they could be kidnapped, but it is highly unlikely. What is more likely is that keeping them indoors or just in the back yard without the ability to explore the world for themselves is stunting their mental and emotional growth. Would you want to be kept indoors for your safety. Is that fair to you? Yes you could be raped or attacked walking down a street, does that mean you shouldn't walk down the street unless someone is watching you or walking with you? They certainly do this to women in some countries and the women are rebelling. I understand that children aren't adults, but they deserve some freedom to be out from under your eye. They deserve some time to be unobserved.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book spoke to me. As a mother, this book spoke to me. As a millennial, this book spoke to me. As a member of society, this book spoke to me. I want to hand this book out to all of the parents I know and tell them to read it now - and then some! .

True Story. Nonfiction: Author Kim Brooks’ story starts the day she consciously left her son in her car for 5 minutes while she ran in to Target to grab something and finds out later that day that she is being criminally charged with endangering her child for doing so. I’ve read about her personal story before in various articles and it always piqued my interest, so I was happy to preview this one even though #nonfiction isn’t normally my thing.

Kim Brooks doesn’t just tell her story through, she pokes it and questions it and researches it and find others who have similar stories to share. Kim shines a light on what parenting is like now and how the expectations of parents have changed within a generation. With subtopics including competitive parenting, consumerism, perinatal anxiety and how parenthood varies geographically (just to name a few). Brooks exposes what parenting is now, in what she calls the Age of Fear and questions what we are actually (and should actually be) afraid of. .

I’m lucky because not only did I get to preview this book, but thanks to Macmillan Audio I got to preview the audio version as well. Nonfiction audiobooks narrated by the author are definitely my favorite way to experience this genre and Kim Brooks’ narration is no exception; her passion and the work she has put in to this truly comes across on the page and through her voice.

So, if you can enter with an open mind and if you are a parent, or someone considering parenthood soon, or a person who better wants to understand your friends who are currently parents, or someone who has already raised your children but better wants to understand how your son or daughter is experiencing parenthood - Read (or listen to) This Book.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book in one day yesterday and kept waking up during the night thinking about it. Small Animals is part memoir and part sociological analysis. It’s an honest, well-researched look at how batshit crazy modern American parenting has become. The book starts when Kim Brooks decides it’s not worth the fight to get her son out of the car to run into Target for one thing so she leaves him in the car, locked, not too hot, happily occupied by a game on a tablet, for 5 minutes to grab headphones for a plane trip. He was fine and perfectly happy when she returned. Interspersed in the rest of the book are the two years following, when she gets home and finds someone had taken video of her son in the car and called the police.
The bulk of this book is a mixture of interviews and case studies, conversations, and her own thoughts about the fear drives modern parenting: Judgement, avoidance of judgement, Irrational and improbable what-if scenarios, competition, social pressures, class and race. Brooks does the research and takes the time to uncover why parents, and mothers in particular, are overwhelmed, frenetic, unhappy, and forced to parent as a competitive sport. The writing is easy and friendly, and doesn’t read like a textbook. I felt like it was a conversation with a friend and found myself identifying with nearly every chapter, like it was an echo of my own feelings and conversations with other moms. If you’re a parent you should read this book, it will change the way you think about raising your kids and what it’s doing to them, to you, to our society. 5/5 stars ⭐️

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Goodreads giveaways in exchange for an honest review.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim Brooks’s Small Animals is a personal and honest look at dealing with the “moral panics” of raising a child. It is a good read from a writer with a strong voice, but it didn’t go far enough in completing many of the viable arguments.

For the full review: https://paulspicks.blog/2018/08/01/sm...

For all my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog

[Katy O. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t think of a better book choice for a book club discussion ~ especially a book club of moms/parents. Let the battle begin!

[Maureen Grigsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another book that has been on my shelf for too long! The author once left her four year old son in the car playing on an iPad while she raced into the store to buy something. A woman filmed this and reported her to the police. Ms Brooks was arrested for this behavior and due to this, wrote an extremely eye-opening examination of how we parent today and what we are doing to our children as a result. This book should be required reading for parents and teachers. Oh, and childless folks as well.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let’s begin with how I went into this book, I’m a single mom of three children. My twin boys are six, they’re autistic, and my daughter is eight. I’m a working mother trying to figure things out on my own terms in what I call “the jungle” of life, mostly parenting. I feel judged daily for a wide variety of things but at the end of the day people can’t take away what’s most important to me, the title “mom”.

I have anxiety and depression, treatment is medication and therapy? Does it take away the ability of me being a good mom?, so it doesn’t, it helps me continue being the best mom I can be. I feel like that’s my first strike, I’m the medicated mom that is always anxious. What helps is, I apply what I’ve learned for the boys and handle my life with lists and schedules that provide balance. My second strike is probably the single mom thing in a sense that our society feels that my kids miss out on experiences because they don’t have that “father” figure. Unfortunately, their dad, my ex-husband, deserted them in 2015. I do the best I can, but I know I can’t make up for that life experience. I breathe and try not to feel guilty. My third strike, I believe is the sense of anxiety of wanting to make sure that I’m doing everything I can for my kids. I feel the guilt, the worry, and the variety of hats I carry are stressful.

My favorite part of the book was the discussion of anxiety, since there is a lot of focus on postpartum depression or depression within parenting, but what about the anxiety? The book uses the term “perinatal depression”. Kim had a discussion about, “why there was more awareness around perinatal depression than anxiety”…the response, “that’s a good question, maybe it’s because with depression, there’s a potential effect on maternal mortality. Depressed people sometimes kill themselves. Anxiety is more about quality of life”. I understand her point but anxiety is horrific, you become in such a panic where you feel like you’re going to crawl out of your skin. You literally just want to jump off a cliff (NOT SERIOUSLY & I’m under care of a psychiatrist and therapist). So, this interesting exchange did make me think of more about why isn’t there a focus on the anxiety. Hopefully that will change and there will be more attention paid to it.

Small Animals encompasses a lot of what I discussed above on top of Kim’s decision of leaving her son in a car. I’ve never experienced a decision of that nature but can honestly say that my decision that haunts me daily was having my boys despite being in a loveless and abusive marriage, I chose life. I won’t get into specifics but I do live with my decision to keep my pregnancy daily and they are my constant reminder of what one decision can do to the rest of your life. The questions for others, the guilt you’re supposed to feel, and I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked, why? I can’t formulate the best answer to why I kept my pregnancy with the boys but I feel that they’ve given various gifts that I would never want to give back. Kim’s story, I was able to connect to it on that level, the feelings she felt on that day and how the world reacted about her decision. I feel the constant reminder each and every single day of the decision I made to keep my boys and I feel that I thrived because of it.

This leads to the other topics presented in the book about the million pieces that compile parenting in general and how it appears in our society today. I commend Kim on the vast amount of research she compiled within the book because the proof is in the pudding, parenting is scary, hard, and competitive. I believe those are the three main words I kept telling myself as I read the book. There are a wide variety of sources that create the fear, the toughness and competitiveness of parenting. I appreciated the examples, resources, people and the reflection she did inward on touching upon the topics. In the end I felt like I could breathe, I was going to be okay, my kids aren’t going to fall apart, and the world I’ve cultivated for them isn’t going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight.



Thank you Flatiron Books for the gifted review copy.

Synopsis via Kirkus: “Making a quick trip into a store, Brooks (The Houseguest, 2016) was only gone for five minutes, leaving her 4-year-old son in his car seat inside the locked car, with the windows ajar. Yet those moments transformed her life in more ways than she could have imagined. With non-apologetic honesty, the author shares her story of that day and the aftermath as her case of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” worked its way through Virginia’s court system. The author skillfully interlinks her personal story with interviews of other mothers who have done similar things—e.g., letting their children play at a local park alone or going to get coffee while leaving a child in a car. She also provides a well-researched look at the American parenting system; she discovered that not only are Americans highly competitive in the parenting realm, they are extremely judgmental as well. More often than not, her experience brought her shame and made her question the extreme role that parents, particularly mothers, play in child-rearing. ”

[EmG ReadsDaily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging part-memoir, part-social commentary. An interesting perspective on the changing cultural expectations of parenting and the reduced opportunities for children to experience safe risk.

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason I thought this was fiction when I picked it up from our library’s audio collection online. When I found it wasn’t I stuck with it anyway.

Holy shit this book pisses me off. Not the message. Not the author. The cruelty of others who will do anything to exalt themselves above anyone else. That’s what pisses me off. Just hearing these stories dredged up some of the shitty memories my wife and I have of being judged as parents. I’m not here to share war stories though. We all get judged at some point or another.

I will say that as the book went on, I started to see some of the ways this toxic culture of over-parenting and parental judgment has influenced us. We structure our kids’ lives way too much. We fall into the “stranger danger” trappings. It is a shame. We also judge and are judged by others for parenting choices.

I’m learning to not worry quite as much now, and this book is helping. I don’t want to pull the “good old days” card, but I remember being left to play all over in the woods as a kid. My parents just told us not to go near the river, and that was it. We never did.

We did play with gas once, and we did get into some
trouble. I look back and do remember some times where I could have possibly been hurt but wasn’t. I know some of that feeds into my paranoias about giving my kids too much autonomy. Anyway, I’m rambling.

This was a good book. It made me feel angry at all of the judgmental people in the world. It made me angry at all of the “good samaritans” who spend too much time policing others. It made me angry at the culture of panic we live it. It also made me angry at myself, but it made me feel like I’m not alone.

If you’re a parent, I suggest checking it out.

[Cari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book should be required reading for this day and age (along with Julie Lythcott-Haims' How to Raise an Adult). Kim Brooks went through a hell no parent should have to experience. One person was so judgmental about her parenting choice - to leave her 4-year-old child alone in a car for about five minutes - that the person went so far as to call the police and report the situation. Brooks shares her story in this book, along with the aftermath. She wrote an article about her experience, where she was lambasted for her choice and called horrible names. Brooks is an eloquent and competent writer, as well as a strong journalist. She includes data and interviews from all sorts of sources, and she probes the circumstances that have led to this problem in our society - namely, that people have become so scared about the independence of children that they feel it's necessary to interfere in situations like these. It's a complicated situation, and there are no overarching answers, but we all need to be aware of this climate and its implications for our future.

[Estelle Erasmus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, like Kim Brooks's deft writing (she's also an essayist and novelist) grabs you by the throat and doesn't let you go till the final page. Much more than a memoir (although Brooks shares her personal story that led to the book), this book is a treatise on what happens when we tighten the reigns of protection around our children to the point where it affects their upbringing, and their parents' state of mind. She has a special skill that allows her to tell a story, while digging deep into supporting facts, statistics, interviews and research that illuminate instead of bog down the book. The happy result is a book that provokes, unveils, and breaks down the messages that we receive and the prices we pay, and maybe even a way to get through it. I've read a lot of parenting books, and while many are just a bunch of talking heads, I feel like this author gets inside your head for maximum impact.

[Devorah Heitner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading in our panic-filled historical moment. Filled with great research and a compelling voice, this book explores how crazy things have gotten, how we got here and offers some thoughts on how we might make things better. Any parent or anyone who was a kid and remembers other times, will find provocative questions and thoughtful reflection here. Highly recommended!

[Genevieve Trono · Rating 5 out of 5]

Small Animals resonated so deeply with me. She shared the story with what happened with her son but also researched and explored the broader topic of how fear has become such a big part of how we parent in today’s society. Are we afraid to let our kids go out and explore, walk alone to a friends house or play at a park because we think something will happen? Or are we afraid because we are told we should be, and we might also be afraid of the judgments we might receive if we do? And what happens when we don’t let kids make some decisions, navigate the tricky waters of childhood friendship, and build their own confidence of “I did this!” by figuring something out by trial and error. Brooks presented a fascinating discussion about this topic and I will be thinking about this for years to come.

I also appreciated that Brooks was able to look at this from her place of privilege and how much this could impact not only the reaction but the consequences of one's actions. Brooks walked us through her own story and also what played into her “lighter” sentence and I appreciated so much that she was able to have perspective about this and also share stories about other women who were not treated as humanely.

Another huge part of this book that I connected so much with what her discussion of postpartum anxiety. There is a lot of discussion about postpartum depression now and I am so happy that this is becoming something that is being “normalized” as it is something that affects many. There hasn’t been as much about postpartum anxiety and I don’t think I have ever read something that resonated so deeply for me. I suffered from crippling anxiety after the birth of our first son. Brooks shares so vividly and honestly about how the anxiety that began with her pregnancy spread and grew much stronger with the arrival of her son.
There were many other aspects of this book that I just thought was so thought-provoking and important not just as a working mother myself but as a member of our society. I highly recommend this book and think anyone who is a parent or spends time with children would benefit from reading it.

[Donna Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brooks is a journalist and also a parent; she is nearly sent to prison for having permitted her son to remain in the car watching a video while she bopped in to a big box store to purchase headphones. The experience provided a catalyst for discussions and research she has done on structured parenting practices versus a looser model, for which she advocates. The resulting book is a plea for greater flexibility and more options for parents that either question the wisdom of tight societal controls on parenting, or that cannot find or afford the childcare that their children are legally required to have when the parent or parents must go to work.

I read this intense manifesto free of charge in exchange for this honest review. Big thanks go to Flatiron Books and Net Galley for the review copy.

Brooks has an engaging writing style, and at the outset of the book I was with her entirely. I wouldn’t leave my child in the car as she did, but the legal fallout sure seems like overkill. Whatever happened to a warning first? But later in the text I find some outrageous logical fallacies and suppositions that she uses to bolster her argument in favor of free range parenting. I quickly moved from being supportive, to questioning, to feelings of hot indignation, and several times I felt it best to set the book aside while my temper cooled.

I suspect I have a lot of company out there. I’m a grandmother now; my children are raised, and though I love my grandsons, I am also happy not to be the one that is raising them. So I have the benefit of a bit of space and distance when I look at this controversy. Fresher are my feelings as a teacher, because there are plenty of hot buttons here that connect with educators, and I haven’t been retired from the classroom for long. More on those hot buttons in a minute.

My favorite part of this book is the research behind and inside of it, and she includes some material that is new to me. For example, I wasn’t aware that nearly three-quarters of Americans in their twenties are childless, or that childcare is so hard to find at any price that more mothers—including low income women—are stay-home mothers. There are a lot of great quotes. However, the conclusions Brooks draws from that research leaves me scratching my head.

The head-scratching as well as the hot buttons all have to do with the suggestion that children, including those in early elementary school, be permitted to roam by themselves to whatever family-oriented public locations their busy parents approve of. An example is the public playground. She reasons that if a mom that works fast food for a few hours after school lets out says her kid is allowed to leave school and go to the park, then the kid should be able to go to the park; likewise, if a writer such as herself wants some alone time, she should be able to drop her kid at the park and go home to her keyboard.

This assertion is bolstered by an assertion that very few children are harmed by strangers, and she proves this thoroughly for those that didn’t already know. In addition, she points out that there are already a lot of parents and other adults at the park.

This is the point at which my jaw drops open and I start closing doors and drawers a little extra hard just thinking about what she’s said. Brooks blithely overlooks the common ways that children at the playground get hurt. Let me count the ways: kids run in front of moving swings. Kids climb the slide someone else is sliding down and maybe both kids are injured. Kids chase a ball into moving traffic. Kids have an allergic reaction when previously nobody knew they were allergic to a single thing. Sometimes kids quarrel with other kids, and whereas many parents deal with this appropriately, there are inappropriate parents out there. If your child upsets Poopsie and Poopsie’s mama decides to unload on your kid, who’s going to step in? If an older child invites yours to play doctor in the bushes and wants to show your child something he’s seen mom and her boyfriend doing, who is going to stop them? Never mind the dangerously strange adults; most of us know there are few of them. But what about everyone else, and what about the accidents that a kid can have anywhere, and for which quick action can make a big difference?

Now let’s look at it from another angle. Which stay-home mom at the park wants to be responsible for your child? What if the park is emptying out and she wants to take her children and go get dinner started, but there’s this one solitary, anxious child that will be left behind? What can she do if one of the above-mentioned accidents befalls your child and he or she is unconscious? She calls an ambulance, and then what? Without parental approval, medics cannot even treat your child. An epipen? An IV line? A trip to the hospital? Some states and municipalities may allow a professional to start treatment, but even if they can, most hospitals won’t admit a kid whose insurance details are not known. And then of course there’s liability. If that parent—the one doing his or her job—gives your child a band-aid or a cookie and it turns out to be the wrong thing, what then? No good deed goes unpunished. And right about now, every reader that has ever worked in a public school is vigorously nodding their head.

Then too, many stay-home parents have made a choice to live on less money in order to create a better life for their family. The closest distance between two points is the stay-home mother and whoever has no childcare and wonders if she could take care of their kid because (fill in the blank.)

Usually a book such as this one will make a strong case for more federally funded childcare, and if that was Brooks’ s main focus, I would be posting a review of this book to every possible outlet in an effort to create a more vocal bandwagon. But instead Brooks really just seems to want other people to watch her kid free, and leave her occasional bad choices unmentioned. (She suggests that the person that called the cops when she left her kid in the car should have spoken to her in person; can you even imagine the hell that might befall anyone that openly questions a total stranger’s parenting practices?)

So if you are looking for a conversation starter for your book group, this might be a good choice, because it is loaded with controversial ideas. If you want to see where those kids come from—the ones that wander in unsupervised and seem more needy than the kids that have a relative, day care supervisor, or nanny in attendance—here is your epiphany. But if you are a prospective parent looking for advice, I suggest you run in the other direction. Run fast.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

No matter which generation you're in, you have probably pointed out the differences between yours and the one after yours in terms of spending time alone and unsupervised. You rode your bike to the corner store, maybe played outside until your mom called you for dinner, but the kid thirty years your junior would do no such thing. Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear takes a look at the evolution of the "fear" that has taken over society and caused these changes. Stranger abduction is close to statistically impossible, yet combating this is a part of many parents' daily lives. There is a lot of fascinating data from studies conducted on the topic. She asks what will become of children who are never left to negotiate an issue or a dilemma without an adult in earshot.

This is also part memoir, as Kim Brooks herself was arrested in 2012 for leaving her son in the car (playing on his iPad, temperature not an issue, per his request) while she ran into Target to buy a pair of headphones for him to use on an upcoming flight. A stranger video recorded her son and called the police. She draws on her own experiences, as well as those of the many other parents who reached out with similar stories.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't hand out five star reviews lightly, but this book gives such an important picture of parenting in America right now. Parents and non-parents would benefit from reading this book, as so much of the anxiety and fear discussed in this book is caused by comparison and judgement by both parents and the childless. I didn't even want to read this book because I was already familiar with the author's experience that led to her writing this book and didn't feel like reading an entire book of her complaining about how crazy it is to be arrested for leaving her child in a car briefly. Yes, that is crazy, but this book is about so much more than her personal experience, and this is possibly the best book on parenting that I have read (and I've read more than I care to admit).

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a super interesting look at parenting and anxiety and raising humans. I really enjoyed this book though, of course, wish the author could have embraced the racism of child rearing that is so common in the US. What she did present was fascinating and a great reminder that kids need and thrive with real independence. If you’re a parent of young kids check this out.

[Hannah Garden · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book! I had no idea! I mean I was aware on some level of murmurings or sort of softball imprecations that parents today are too helicoptery or whatever, but I guess I chalked that up mostly to the kind of generational shittalking that doesn't amount to much, like oh millennials are so entitled, which is the dumbest stuff ever and I block it out, but what!! Oh man!!! It's so much deeper and scarier and more anti-woman and classist and racist than that, although a lot of the former serves as a gauzy veil behind which lurks the ancient accumulated arsenal of the latter.
Kim Brooks is white and I think she would say middle-class but I would say well-off, and she leaves her kid in the car for a second because of some just perfectly sound reasons and a stranger films her child alone in the car and calls the police and ultimately Kim finds out she's been literally arrested (she lives in Chicago and this happens while she's visiting her parents in Virginia so there's also this whole crazy part about how she doesn't even know she'd been arrested until way later, which Virginia law enforcement tries to blame her for, it's nuts), which opens her eyes to this being a not-that-uncommon occurrence for women, and then she turns that into this incredible book where she talks about all the costs of the current status quo of over-protective parenting, most of which are costs that single mothers of color end of paying.
It's journalistic but it's a little memoiristic as well and Brooks is smart and kind and funny and is writing about such fundamental, core experiences for women, whether we are parents or not--fear and judgment--that this book is just a really good read, I definitely recommend it.