You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad, Either): 14 Secrets to Finding Happiness between Super Mom and Slacker Mom, by Jennifer Singer

I was drawn to the title of this book; with all of the alarmist parenting tomes out there, it sounded so soothing and sensible. Singer's message is a good one: parent from the middle. Don't hover and overschedule; don't be Amy Poehler in Mean Girls; and you'll be fine. As I read it, though, I realized that it has no bearing on my life whatsoever. The don't-be-a-supermom half of the book is pretty much a lighter take on Judith Warner's Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. I read that while on maternity leave, and it too had nothing to do with me. These books focus on problems of wealthy women. Warner's book describes the highly educated, successful career woman whose family will do just fine on the husband's salary. She feels guilty over working when she doesn't have to, so she stays home, putting all of her drive and desire for recognition into raising her kids. Well, I do need to work (at least, if we want to maintain our current lifestyle of thoughtless Wal-Mart runs and Thai food--which we emphatically do), so I don't have to feel guilty about the fact that, for the most part, I like to work. I will never have to dazzle the soccer moms with my mad parenting skillz, mainly because I gave up overachieving years ago, but also because I just don't have time. I have a job.

Like Perfect Madness, the supermom section of You're a Good Mom is only relevant to wealthy women in wealthy communities. According to Singer, youth sports are being ruined by parents who have their kids on four separate soccer teams, send their kids to special sports camps in the summer, and hire personal trainers and coaches for their kids to keep them ahead of the competition and prep them for the scholarship they'll compete for in twelve years. What, asks Singer, does that mean for a kid who just wants to have fun kicking a ball around? She has a point--that's a bad thing. But is this a problem in your town? I don't think it's a big issue in mine. Her example of sensible parenting is to get her kids five private lessons with a woman whose son swims in national competitions prior to the beginnning of swim-team season. Problem solved! I'm sure that this is totally reasonable in Singer's community, but I'm not stressing about anything like that out here in the land of the solidly middle class. To sum up, I'm in no danger of becoming a supermom.

This is not just because I'm not rich. Even if we were rolling in dough, I'd have no problem reading a book while my daughter does a puzzle or watches "Dora the Explorer." Apparently I am unlike most mothers, because I do not feel that relaxing is a sin. Singer tells mothers that they should be more like fathers, who don't feel that they have to fill every spare second with a chore. She recounts a situation in which her husband, having a few minutes to spare before he has to leave for work, flips through a magazine instead of finding a job to do. She's stunned, but I'm not--why on earth would I fill ten precious minutes of free time with crumb-wiping or dishwasher-emptying when I can relax with a delightful magazine? (Note: I love magazines.)

The slacker-mom section of the book was equally irrelevant to me. Anyone with little enough common sense to wear trampy t-shirts and show horror movies to toddlers isn't going to be reading a book anyway. I did have one problem with this section, though: Singer seems kind of homophobic. According to a chart, the "Cool but still in charge mom" takes the kids to see High School Musical. The slacker mom takes them to see Rent, which is all about--turn your eyes away, Junior--gays!!! Heaven forfend! There are reasons you might not want a sixth grader to see Rent, but I don't think that the fact that some characters are gay is one of them. Similarly, she complains about a teacher showing Brokeback Mountain to a class. Yes, that is one major lapse in judgment, but it's because of the sexual content, not the homosexual content. From the way Singer phrases her complaint, it's clear that the gay stuff ooks her out. I wouldn't let a child watch Brokeback, either, but I wouldn't let her watch any movie with explicit content. Gay people live in the world; it's silly to pretend they don't and that gayness is some evil thing we must protect the little innocents from. Remember, Homophobic Mom and Dad: your little darling might grow up to be one of them.

Everyone is Beautiful, by Katherine Center, and Family Acts, by Louise Shaffer

I really enjoyed Center's The Bright Side of Disaster, so I snapped this one up when I saw it at the library. I related to Lainie quite a bit as she suffered from the post-baby frump-out. I should have posted about this weeks ago when I read it, but honestly, it's been a while. I don't have too much to say.

Sadly, I must say the same thing for Family Acts, another family drama with a showbiz background (like Serendipity). It was a page-turner, though. Shaffer seems to be a reliable source for rainy afternoon or beach reading.

Serendipity, by Louise Shaffer

I read this in a couple of days. It's not earth-shattering, but it had a couple of elements I find really appealing. First, some chapters are present-day, while some are flashbacks. I usually like that kind of time-shifting. Also, the setting for many of the flashbacks is Broadway in the '60s, which gives it a retro-glam sheen. It won't change your life, but it would be a good beach read.

Kid Lit

After reading this article (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/11/13/MN100771.DTL), I got to thinking about my own personal list of favorite childhood books. I have a current set of favorites that I read with my daughter, and of course, I have a beloved list of books that I read over and over when I was kid. Anyway, here are some of them:

Current Favorites:

• A Lot of Otters, by Barbara Helen Berger. I love the illustrations of the otters, especially their facial expressions.
• No, David, by David Shannon.
• Alice the Fairy, also by David Shannon. She has magic: she turns her dad's cookies into hers.
• Dragon Naps, by Lynne Bertrand. This one is so funny. The dragons can't sleep at naptime, so they give each other compliments and listen to Italian pop songs about werewolves, among other things.
• The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown. I love the art, even though the mother bunny is codependent and creepy.
• I am a Bunny, by Richard Scarry. This one has beautiful illustrations, and what is cuter than a little bunny in overalls?

My Childhood Favorites

• Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume. My family still says, "Eat it or wear it."
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, also by the fabulous Ms. Blume. What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said?
• The Ramona series, by Beverly Cleary
• Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren
• Daphne's Book, by Mary Downing Hahn. This book is one of the first truly emotional things that I ever read. The grocery store scene (if you've read it, you know what I mean--it's burned into your brain)--wow. It hurt my little fifth-grade heart.
• The Mister Men and Little Miss series, by Roger Hargreaves
• The Value Tales series, by Spencer and Ann Donegan Johnson. These are the best groovy-'70s books. Diversity, feminism--they had it all! These make me suspect that my mom was a secret hippie under the surface.
• The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Ammons, read this to us one chapter at a time. I really admired the ingenuity and resourcefulness that the kids had. They made being orphans living in an abandoned boxcar in the woods seem like a fun adventure, rather than a total nightmare.

The Devil in the Junior League, by Linda Francis Lee

I'm almost finished with this one, and I'm really enjoying it. It's a silly trifle, but that's definitely preferable to pretentious crap that is way too impressed with its own importance (I'm looking at you, Random Acts of Heroic Love!). This is the story of Frede Ware (pronounced "Freddie," though my internal narrator keeps calling her "Freed"), a high-society Texas belle who is all about appearances. When her husband leaves her (and steals her money! And secretly divorces her! All because she was too stupid to read papers she was signing!), she has to hire her neighbor, an NC (no class) lawyer with a sweet, sincere, adorable wife who dresses like a total floozy. She doesn't have to pay the lawyer with money, of which she now has none--she has to get Nikki (said floozy) into the Junior League. Which, obviously, is a Sisyphean task.

It's looking like Frede won't get Nikki into the Junior League, and clearly I care too much about fictional characters, because THANK GOD. Nikki is good-hearted and true to herself (at least, until Freed gets her hands on her), and it looks like Frede is going to be more like Nikki rather than the other way around. Honestly, who could wear that much beige? I would never want to live in a world where wearing red marks you as totally NC and inappropriate, and heaven forfend you wear a shoe with more than a one-inch heel. I have my fingers crossed that Frede will leave the Junior League in some Scarlett O'Hara-level high drama--as God is my witness!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I was of two minds when I began this book. There was excitement over the subject matter (post World War II England, which has been interesting to me lately), yet there was also apprehension. First of all, it was written by two authors, which is just weird to me. How do people write together? (Turns out that Shaffer started the book but was sidelined by health problems, so Barrows, her niece, continued her work. I now feel like a jerk for my unkind thoughts toward dual authorship.) Also, it is written is a series of letters, which could run to the gimmicky side. Fortunately, all of my apprehension was unwarranted. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a sweet, engaging read, the kind that is best enjoyed on a rainy weekend. (You know: couch, blanket, hot chocolate, maybe a baked good or three or ten....) Seriously, it's the literary equivalent of comfort food, kind of like Circle of Friends. It's also educational if you're not as well-versed in history as you ought to be. Honestly, I had no idea that Germany occupied part of Britain during the war. Should I be embarrassed? The Guernsey residents who write to Juliet (Our Heroine, who is smart, funny, independent, and pretty much awesome) tell stories of the occupation that run the gamut from funny to heartbreaking. Some plot points are pretty predictable, but that's okay--the predictability lends to the comfy-coziness of the book. Anyway, it's not too predictable; quite a few things I expected to happen didn't. (I was waiting for a big reveal that Dawsey and Elizabeth once had a thing, and fortunately, they didn't go there. It would have been creepy considering that Juliet and Elizabeth are very similar.) So, enjoyed it a lot and would definitely recommend it.