Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be

by Timothy P Carney

Overview

The bestselling author of Alienated America traveled the country asking families and experts the same two questions: Why is parenting so hard now? And why are the results so bad?

Our culture tells parents there's one best way to raise kids: enroll them in a dozen activities, protect them from trauma, and get them into the most expensive college you can. If you can't do that, don't bother.

How is that going? Record rates of anxiety, depression, medication, debts, loneliness and more. In Family Unfriendly, bestselling author and Washington Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney says it's time to end this failed experiment in overparenting.

Have more kids, have more fun, cancel the travel soccer games, let your kids wander off, and give them deeper sources of meaning than material success. 

This is an old-fashioned view, but every day the evidence validates it. Drawing on rigorous research—both as a reporter and as a dad of six—Carney demonstrates why modern parenting is so misguided. The high standards set for modern American parenting are unrealistic and setting parents—and our kids—up to fail.

Researched over three years and written in between rec baseball games and church picnics where nobody was watching the kids, Family Unfriendly is deeply wise, energetically told, and destined to be the most consequential book about parenting in years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063236462
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/19/2024
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	56,441
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Timothy P. Carney is a father of six children, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a columnist at the Washington Examiner. Tim and his wife, Katie, have raised their family in suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia. Tim grew up with three older brothers in Greenwich Village and later in Pelham, New York. He is the author of Alienated America, The Big Ripoff, and Obamanomics. 

Editorial Reviews

Americans are overwhelmed by the idea of raising kids—and understandably so. Tim Carney’s Family Unfriendly is the book we all need to understand the problems, and then meet them head-on with hope and joy.” — Arthur Brooks, Harvard Kennedy School; coauthor with Oprah Winfrey of Build the Life You Want

“Family Unfriendly is provocative, funny, warm, and moving. Even when Carney and I disagree, he makes me think hard about what kind of writer, mother, and neighbor I want to be. If more lawmakers and institutions adopted the same curiosity and joy that Carney displays here, American families would be a lot better off.” — Alyssa Rosenberg, columnist for the Washington Post

“Tim Carney takes an unblinking look at the impact of contemporary culture on marriage, procreation and demography, and family life. He documents what at some level we all know: our culture—and much of our public policy—is decidedly family unfriendly. The results? Declining marriage rates, fewer children, less childhood happiness, and more parental anxiety. But Carney doesn’t stop there, as so many conservative cultural critics do. Rather, he points the way to reform and renewal.” — Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University

“Family Unfriendly is a treasure: studded with valuable facts that every policymaker needs to know; and sparkling with wit that will delight parents and nonparents alike. Anyone interested in creating a happier home, or a better America, should read this book.” — Mary Eberstadt, author of Primal Screams and Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisited

From the Publisher

2024-01-19
A parenting book that focuses on giving children room to grow, take some risks, and discover themselves.

The premise of this book is that many of the problems in U.S. society can be traced to a variety of parenting failures. Anxious, fearful parents are creating a generation of anxious, fearful children, according to American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Carney, author of Alienated America and father of six children. “Our kids, as of this writing, have forty first cousins,” he writes. “Our big family is tied up with our view on parenting culture.” The author laments the rise of helicopter parenting, where children are relentlessly monitored, shuttled from one class to another, and pushed too hard to succeed. Lower your expectations, Carney advises, and give them plenty of free time to play, explore, and socialize. He points to the value of community events where parents can volunteer and children can simply have fun. Another issue he discusses is the trend toward one-child families, which has led to a “baby bust.” Carney has little time for adults who are so frightened of the future that they do not want to have children at all. “Fear and sadness are the bread and butter of the Western media,” he notes. “In any corner of daily life, the press can find a reason for terror or despair….But the fear and sadness are not just about the climate or a pandemic. We have to come back to anthropology: we simply do not see people as good.” However, Carney is optimistic about the human capacity to solve problems. Raising children, he believes, is the most satisfying and important thing a person can experience. Some readers will disagree, but for aspiring parents, the author is an encouraging guide.

With practical views and advice, Carney offers a road map toward better parenting.

Kirkus Reviews