Description: As conscientious, "enlightened" parents, we often seem intent on raising the "perfect" child. We pursue this goal with fierce determination, taking advantage of any system or theory, any course or class, anything we can rent or buy that promises to make our baby intelligent, athletic, and highly accomplished. We turn to computer training for kindergartners, reading readiness programs for toddlers, exercise classes for infants, and musical stimulation sessions for fetuses idling in the womb.

The push to make children achieve begins early and accelerates rapidly. Jean Grasso Fitzpatrick calls it the superbaby syndrome, a rampant phenomenon infecting us with a fevered desire to cram our children's lives with activity that always has a goal or purpose. The ultimate effect, however, is not gain but loss -- loss of carefree parent-child interaction, loss of the natural rhythms of development, in a sense even loss of childhood itself. Fitzpatrick, writing as one parent to another, intends to help us protect what the superbaby syndrome threatens to take away. She assesses philosophies, products, and programs that promote the syndrome and advises on what's good or bad, helpful or harmful.

She writes with wit and without stridency. The Superbaby Syndrome is a necessary book for our excessively competitive, overambitious times.

Please Wait