I really liked the idea of this book. A global perspective on parenting traditions and norms to both expand your worldview of what parenting looks like, and highlight how some foreign practices could be leveraged to bolster your own practices.

However, I found the execution to be less than what I was hoping for. It is quite heavy on the personal narrative and experiences with some tenuous connections between those and the featured parenting norm, where I get the cultural aspect was far more interesting than the personal. But like I said, it may have been due to my mismatched expectations for what this was.

The chapter about communal parenting with their friends in Singapore seemed relatively unrelated to the cultural discussion. It was largely focused on their two families and very little to do with something specific to Singapore parenting. Felt out of place and like she REALLY wanted to talk about the benefits of their living arrangements.

Overall, this was fine. But that is just my opinion and your mileage will vary. Thanks to NetGalley, Marina Lopes, Hachette Books for the opportunity to read and review an ARC.

A lot of this was incredibly compelling and I originally thought it was going to be a 5 star read! Unfortunately some of the chapters (the commune one) got a bit weird for me, and after a while I felt the focus of the book had been lost. Overall, thought-provoking, and the author's life meant she had a really unique perspective!

Wow. As not only a parent but as a full time working parent who is still breastfeeding her youngest this book spoke to me in ways and about topics that I didn't even know I needed to hear. But how the author is able to put on to paper the feelings of so many parents in so many different countries is just beautiful. I didn't even know what I was missing or what I needed but I knew it was something. So many times during this read did I turn to my partner to be like.... listen to what Brazil does. Or can you believe this Chinese tradition?! But even after that looking into the government programs and how different cultures set up parents for success made me so mad to be where I am today.

In the United States we are lacking in comprehensive care and support for our birthing parents and have little to no support net for after birth. Marina Lopes is able to show us, United State, readers what life could be if the government, organizations, and citizens actually cared and took them to have comprehensive policy changes to support a person and a family after the birth of a child.

Learning about different countries customs and traditions throughout the chapters was super informative. But even more was learning about the way that they policies got put into place and the outcomes. It seems that if anything the American readers can take away how things are lacking and if it were different how our own citizens could benefit.

Marina Lopes also sums up each of the chapters perfectly with a list of take away points. Just a quick and dirty run down of what to do and how to do it with no pressure to the reader and the assurance that how they parent is ok.

I have already mentioned this book to several mom groups I'm part of and just to parents in general. I enjoyed reading it for sure!