Product Description

In The Idle Parent Tom Hodgkinson provides a revolutionary and wholly sensible approach to childcare, based on the idea of D.H. Lawrence and many others that the best thing we can do for children is to leave them alone. Of course, this doesnÂ’t mean that we should completely neglect them, but rather that we should provide them with the space and time to grow up self-reliant, confident, happy and free. To do so we need to stop worrying and start nurturing the natural instincts towards creativity and independence in every child. And in so doing we will find ourselves becoming happier and better parents. This is the perfect guide for anyone grappling with parenthood and wondering why the existing manuals are so dispiriting.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22557 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
`The sort of book which any self-respecting child would wish their parents had read. Gently comedic on the surface, it is a book about serious freedom underneath. Profoundly sane, kind and endearing, it is written with a huge generosity of spirit as an act of family-liberation.' --Jay Griffiths, author of Wild: An Elemental Journey

Review
'Wise, funny, practical and personal, The Idle Parent puts the fun back into parenting.' Oliver James

About the Author
Tom Hodgkinson is editor of The Idler and author of How To Be Idle and How To Be Free. He contributes a parenting column to the Daily Telegraph and writes for various newspapers and magazines. He lives on a farm in Devon with his family.

Customer Reviews

Best parenting book I've read (and I've read a few....!)
This is a superb book which has helped me to re-think the way I parent. My children were over-stimulated and overscheduled due to overkeen parenting and my 5 year old watched way too much television as a toddler (he was a poor sleeper and very lively so I thought TV would help me and him in some way but it made matters much worse as I believe excessive TV contributed to his hyperactivity and being unable to entertain himself). My eldest has always been extremely demanding however, having read The Idle Parent, this is set to change! I've already started to make changes to the way I do things and now my ironing gets done during the day (not 10 o'clock at night anymore!) whilst my children play in the garden with the patio door firmly closed!!

really hard to rate as I hated a lot of it but agreed with the initial premise!
I have not encountered such an infuriating book for a long time. I am broadly speaking a continuum concept, idle parent sort of person, but this book had me chucking it a couple of times. I know how I parent and am happy with it, so I was in no way reading it as a guide, which is just as well as this book is not aimed at people like me.

The main issue I have with this book is that its demographic is clearly ONLY the middle class professional who has plenty of money, a garden and lots of choices about how and where they live. I first chucked this book when people living on the 10th floor should get allotment space so the children can be left to potter. I live on the fourth floor - I assume that this also applies to me - but where am I going to find an allotment?! I live a mile from the City of London! And even if I could find one I wouldn't be able to afford the few quid it costs.

I chucked this book a second time when the author starts going on (at some length) about private education. Did you know that you could easily save £10,000 a year if you just cut out things that you really don't need? No? Neither did I. If I wanted to free up that kind of money - double it in fact as I have 2 kids - we would all starve and have no home - £10,000 being 90% of my annual income. In this section he also completely contradicts his idle parent hypotheses by giving as an example of a woman who really wanted to send her child to Summerhill and raised the money by working a market stall! NOT very idle!

A frankly laughable aspect of his analysis of the wisdom of private education was inferring that Eton is the epitome of autonomus education and therefore fulfils all the criteria for the free thinking anarchist or autonomous parent! Methinks Old Etonians enjoy positions where they boss us little people around - THEY may be autonomous (though I suspect that they are slaves to the mighty dosh as much if not more than the rest of us), but they are certainly not striving for a freer and more autonomous society.

He also refers to Jeremy Bentham as 'evil'! Of course he is entitled to his opinion, and Utilitarianism is by no means a perfect philosophy, but it is certainly in no way evil, and nor was Bentham. The Continuum Concept (which he extols) has a good heart, but is good for making people (lets face it women) feel bad about not being able to be with their babies ALL the time. We are not all so privileged as to be able to have nannies and cleaners to make things a little easier!

I have not given this book a lower rating for not liking it - that is not the way I critique - I have marked it down due to the many inconsistencies in his hypothesis and the examples he uses to support it. It is an interesting read, but does not hold together convincingly as a result of this.

excellent
Such a good book, i read it during the half term holidays and i totally enjoyed it, for the first time i took it easy and let my kids be independant, they were happy and so was i, i actually got to have a sleep during the day without any upset....i'm happy to have found this book whilst my kids are still young!