A review by margaretefg
Parentology: Everything You Wanted to Know about the Science of Raising Children but Were Too Exhausted to Ask by Dalton Conley

3.0

I am a big fan of Conley's memoir Honky, and I also appreciate several of his studies, like Pecking Order and Being Black, living in the Red, This book was lighter than any of those, but still hilariously funny, like Honky. I a found Conley's descriptions of balancing what he learns from scientific studies with what he hopes with his actual real life children endearing and funny. Although I do wonder if the book would have been different had Conley's kids not been so smart, a trait he clearly values and which is not perhaps entirely due to nurture. In the end I enjoyed reading the book...I don't really think C nlet is suggesting that others use his methods so much as he is mocking the whole notion of parental advice books, while still accepting that we modern parents will use every resource at our disposal to try to do the best by our children.