Melting Snow

Fun Fact Friday: Common Sense

Friday, July 14, 2017

"Letters in My First Name: N E V A and Change" 

The Fun Fact Friday prompt for "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" 
On this day in 1946, Dr. Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care was first published. How useful really, in your opinion (whether you have kids or not), are parenting books? And (I'm not judgin' anyone, but...) what does it say about the person who is reading from anything sporting a title beginning with "The Common Sense Book..."?

Common Sense

“Common sense is not so common.”
Voltaire, A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary

Common sense is an uncommon commodity,
which is why
books entitled
"The Common Sense Book..."
make their authors a millionaires.

“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Literary Remains, Vol. 1

Parenting is frightening, when you remember that you are responsible for raising the next potential emperor of the planet. I suspect, new parents sometimes feel overwhelmed with the responsibility and wonder about the best methods of child rearing. This is especially true if the new parents feel that their parents' method of child care or rearing caused them issues in their lives.

It doesn't hurt to consult a parenting book, if the new parents have questions about specific aspects of child rearing. It shows the parents are willing to learn something new, or realize they need help with things they are unsure about. Problems occur when the parents consider the author an expert because of a PHD or some other title acquired through schooling and not parenting. Just because an individual has a PHD doesn't mean that person knows anything about parenting.