Taking Parenting Public makes a compelling case that parenting has become dangerously undervalued in America today. It calls for a new investment-both personal and public-into the work of raising children and argues that we are all 'stockholders' in the next generation. With a foreword by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, Taking Parenting Public crosses boundaries to bring together thinkers from diverse fields spanning the political spectrum. It features contributions from distinguished experts in economics, political science, public policy, child development, public health, history, and the media. While recent books have focused on working mothers or absent fathers, Taking Parenting Public is the first volume to take a comprehensive look at the common struggles of parents. These essays go beyond the usual chest-beating about busy parents torn between work and family demands to suggest bold solutions. Instead of the typical call for 'parent replacement'-more child care, more after school programs and more mentors-the contributors offer fresh strategies for 'parent replenishment, ' ways to put mothers and fathers back into the lives of their children not only as economic providers, but also as emotional and moral providers

While advice abounds from a variety of sources before parents embark on their parenting journeys, the only parent preparation we actually receive comes from our family and peer stories. Yet most adults do not realize that in day-to-day challenges of guiding our children, something interesting happens. As we steer our children through life, we reopen our own childhood roads. Just when our child most needs us, we become needy ourselves: as adults and parents, we find that we have unresolved raising issues, basic needs that were not met in our childhoods. Our needs and memories echo and influence many of the parenting decisions we make, even though we’re unaware of those influences at times. Fortunately, children help parents reach their needs as much as their parents help them fulfill their own. Our child ends up guiding us, by connecting us to some earlier time in our life when we encountered distress. We dredge up a lesson, and we adapt by adhering to or changing the story that we tell ourselves about who we are. We re-negotiate the five basic needs that surface from our childhood memories as our youngsters pass through each of the developmental phases. The self-aware parent focuses on creative problem solving by focusing on one interaction at a time. It Takes a Child to Raise a Parent offers an exploration of how our own childhood memories and needs influence and shape our parenting decisions in our adult lives. Offering tips, stories from a variety of families, and step by step exercises, Janis Johnston helps parents better understand and grasp the tools necessary to face parenting challenges head on, and to explore new ways of understanding ourselves, our children, and our family interactions. Expectant parents and current parents interested in understanding their own personality development as well as the many moods of childhood and their own children, will find clear guidelines for understanding their roles in their children’s lives as well as concrete suggestions for how to navigate the choppy waters of raising children.