Reviews for Snapshots of Heaven

The average rating for Snapshots of Heaven based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-08-07 00:00:00 Ryan Sculley I ran across this book in a blog post and decided to give it a read. This refers to the American version. Never in world history have children been so safe, so nurtured and guarded, and yet also surveilled, ensconced and fretted over. At every turn (perhaps, I have my doubts) experts warn us about doing x or y or risking our children's well being; parents helicopter their kids until the kids have no space of their own, no time to waste time. Free time, roaming the neighborhood are gone the way of the VCR or record player. Furedi calls attention to studies that show how children spend MORE time with their parents then in previous generation, where kids do and have more done by their parents for them. Yet, to believe the popular literature, our children are starving for attention by parents who don't have the mental resources to take care of them. Risk taking, like from normal play or the child's own actions, are seen as irresponsible parenting or endangerment bordering on criminality. Furedi turns this on its head and argues that by insulating kids from risk, we retard their full development. hem. Why? Furedi goes into some depth about how recent trends have eroded parental confidence and empowered experts, especially governments, to teach parenting to parents. If you are appalled about stories of parents being arrested for letting their kids walk to to the park, this book is for you. This is an academically informed work into modern day parenting and its historical and sociological context. It is not without its shortcomings but should be read, discussed and debated. It would be interesting to see how his sources hold up, and whether his examples are extreme ones. I give the author some leeway to engage in diatribe. It would also have interesting to see him address parents who willingly adopt the paranoid style not out of a lack of confidence, but out of an abundance of it. Furedi's work should be taken as a thought-piece on tho phenomenon of hyperparenting, paranoid parenting, etc.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-08-07 00:00:00 Daniel Nowlan Although I still support the basic premise of this book (all the fear and control around parenting is out of control), it was a disappointing read for me. The reasoning is sometimes vague, repeatedly contradicts itself, is full of repeating (I checked maybe ten times if I was reading a paragraph for the tenth time but it turns out to be mentioned for the tenth time in four pages) or leaves out any self criticism or logical reasoning. At one point Furedi mentions how sociologists cannot really objectively study society as they are a part of it, which is true, yet he does not apply this to himself. And that was only one example. As a sociologist myself I expect more, much more. The most disturbing part was how Furedi says a lot of studies involving parenting are not really proven or too small to be taken seriously, which is true, yet he does not present a steady study of his own to prove they are all completely wrong. Somehow he is against these theories, but what he's saying is only a theory as well - and that is of course not a problem. As I said in the beginning, I still support the premise as I believe it to be largely true but this book doesn't really convince me of it. And it's badly written: too much repeating, too vague, too formal. Books, names, studies are mentioned abundantly, but very little examples to make the theories or parenting reality come to life. As I still believe in the premise, it pains me to say that I would not recommend to read this as it is not a fun or convincing read.