Parenting in the 21st century?

MsT reviews ‘Smart Parents Handbook for Early Parenthood,’ the latest Pakistani parenting guide

With advice, suggestions and desi totkay raining down on new parents left, right and center, it is not surprising that most of them feel overwhelmed and turn to parenting books for answers.

Considering this, one would expect that there would already be plenty on the bookshelves for them to rely on. Unfortunately, most titles available on the subject are hung up on just one aspect of the job or other, be it psychological (read: Children Are from Heaven), medical or even religious, with little applicable knowledge or analytic insight.

Smart Parents Handbook — For Early Parenthood by Sarwat N Shah attempts to fill this gap in the market. With topics ranging from giving azaan into a new born’s ears to child aggression, it appears that the handbook is comprehensive and exhaustively covers all necessary topics. A proper reading, however, discloses that there is scarcely any content that could be considered vital, or even new. It comes across as little more than a compilation of generic parenting approaches, gained from miscellaneous sources. In seeking to be all-inclusive, the author (a writer, entrepreneur, lawyer and mother of two) often ends up merely stating the obvious and overlooking the crucial, veering towards didactic preaching and making one doubt whether it was backed by proper research or not.

Unfortunately, there is more that takes away from the handbook. The guide brims with so many basic spelling errors, one gets the impression it has not been edited at all! Unnecessary capitalisation and poor punctuation add to the downsides. On the flip side, the typeface allows for easy reading, although the fact that the whole of it is structured in bullet points minus the bullets screams laziness. More so, in trying to make the guide interactive, the designers appear to have gone so overboard that it reads more like a book for the kids themselves, rather than their parents.



There are, however, some golden moments which are sure to give new parents some respite. The provision of technical knowledge is inarguably scanty, but a sparse smattering of home remedies and age-activity charts act as the saving grace. Some sections, such as those on children’s education, television time and coping with negative adolescent behavior are considerably constructive. The bullet-points make for concise and easy reading while the design, albeit childish, is colourful and attractive.

Conclusively, while it is indeed pleasing to see Pakistani authors exploring different genres and female authors in particular coming to the center-stage, Smart Parents Handbook does not exactly strike as a product of extensive research or editing investment. Hopefully though, other books of the genre by other authors will bring something new to the market.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, April 19^th, 2015.