3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
I’m really not sure I have 250 words to say about this book. It’s 71 lists about parenthood. They’re not hilarious, but they’re pretty funny. Maybe not laugh out loud, but definitely chuckle out loud. It’s good to know other kids are as weird as mine. On a list of the cool new things you’ll get to do as a parent? Let someone stare blankly at you and eat a popsicle while you pee! Yep, that’s happened. Games you can play while laying down – I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s let a toddler horrifically tangle style my hair so I could lay on the floor and maybe doze for a couple minutes.
As an aside, why are so damn many of these parenting humor books written by dads? I hate to sound like a misandrist, and maybe I’m reinforcing traditional gender roles in saying this, but I can’t help but feel like a lot of these men are probably not the primary caregivers of their kids. This might be the Clomid hormones talking (if anyone here has taken it, you know what I’m talking about), but I always feel like if I was spending my life in the trenches with little kids and my husband sauntered in after work and wrote a comedy book about “wow, parenting, amirite? You’ll totally never pee alone again, ha ha ha” – I’d be irritated. You can’t tell me that men are most often the ones doing most of the child-rearing, so the proportion of male writers in this genre seems super lopsided.
Which, of course, isn’t to say that this particular dad didn’t have anything to say and shouldn’t have written this book. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent book and he seems like a really good dad and a really funny guy. I just wish the proportion of men and women writing parenting books was somewhat more in line with the proportion of men and women who are the primary caregivers for children.