Parents Can Learn

THE immense number of books designed to lead stumbling parental feet along the dangerous path of parenthood are apt to recall the conversation between the frightened young mother whose baby had a chest cold and the amiable family doctor who was attending the patient. ‘But, Dr. Russell,’ she wailed, ‘why can’t I rub camphor on his chest? Doesn’t it do any good?’ ‘Yes,’ said the doctor, ‘some. It relieves the mother’s mind.’

Mrs. Hanford, however, does considerably better than that. Much of what she says in Parents Can Learn — particularly in the first few chapters which deal with what might be called the pre-parent period—contains the hard sustaining core of good common sense. Her style is easy and humorous. She holds out hope, even to the parents of adolescents, of better times to come. She does not allow herself to use overtechnical psychological terms. She conveys to the reader the warm and comforting assurance that the specific Jane or John who is causing two perfectly good adults to lie awake nights with anxiety is neither a unique case nor destined tor the juvenile courts. A book which any woman in any one of the Seven Ages from expectant mother to grandmother of many can read with pleasure and profit.