The Parenting Bookshelf: Hunt, Gather, Parent

TL;DR: my favorite parenting book with some big caveats

NOTE: This is a lengthy review of the love-it-or-hate it parenting book, Hunt, Gather, Parent, which means your email may be cut off. To view the full post, click here.

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I realized I hadn’t put out a new edition of the Parenting Bookshelf and especially that I hadn’t shared one of my all-time favorite parenting books. Before we get into it, just a reminder, be ruthless about the advice you receive and solicit. Evaluate who’s giving it, think about if you’re in the space to receive it, and trust yourself to know what advice will work for you and what won’t. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading this piece I wrote about The Art of Reading Parenting Books.

Let’s get into it…

Hunt, Gather, Parent

Written by Michaeleen Doucleff

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The author, Michaeleen Doucleff, like a lot of first-time parents, didn’t realize just how hard parenting can be until she was in the middle of it. In her own words, she had “no clue how to handle [her daughter] Rosy.” Finding Western parenting practices having no effect on her daughter, Doucleff embarks on a round-the-world trip to learn parenting from ancient cultures. There’s a reason this book is one of the first parenting books I ever read—an opportunity to learn about other cultures and how they parent? Sign me up!

In Doucleff’s travels, she visits three communities: the Mayans in Mexico, the Inuit in the Arctic Circle, and the Hadzabe tribe in Tanzania. The book reads like a mix of anthropological anecdotes and parenting philosophy. Doucleff travels with her preschool-aged daughter, Rosy, to each of these places and we see a peek at what it’s like living in these communities and what parenting looks like as the people of these communities observe and guide Doucleff’s interactions with Rosy.

Doucleff structures the book into three key parts: the first focuses on the Mayan community and how to inculcate kids with a sense of responsibility via chores. Doucleff notices that the kids in Mayan families often participate in the household chores without being asked. They do it because they are part of a family. Once this example has been laid out, Doucleff then shares how this can be accomplished. For a little kid, it may be letting them do a task they’ve expressed interest in with minimal guidance from your end. For older kids, it’s subtle reminders like “the dishes are still in the sink” as a way to diffuse the responsibility and gently encourage them to take up a task. The point is to foster a sense of acomedido—of helpfulness—in children.

When Doucleff stays with the Inuit, the focus is on how we can enter the parenting promised land: mastery of our emotions. The Inuit never show anger to their children—to them to show anger is to become a child yourself. Clearly, I am a very old child. I was very excited about this chapter and of course, was sorely disappointed when it turned out that I had to do the work first (why is there never an easier way?!). This chapter had some interesting ways to help break out of the tantrum/power struggle cycle. Two I found particularly fascinating: stories and dramas. One of the more interesting techniques was using “monster” stories to discourage bad behavior. For example, if you leave the fridge open too long, the fridge monster will escape and take you away for a few days. The second, dramas, was the one I found more compelling: in the presence of children, adults acting out unwanted behaviors and being reprimanded by another adult as a way to show children this is unacceptable behavior at any age by anyone.

Finally, Doucleff shares the wisdom of the Hadzabe people in Tanzania. In this final section, the focus is on how we can instill confidence and high self-esteem in our children. Again, the answer is not earth-shattering: autonomy. She wisely shares the difference between independence and autonomy—independence is disconnection from others and responsibility only for yourself. Autonomy, on the other hand, is your sense of control over yourself while still engaging with your family and community. The guidance here is to take inventory of how often you instruct your child in an hour and pare that back significantly (ideally, 3 an hour at most). Create zones of autonomy where you don’t need to instruct your child at all.

The book concludes with Doucleff implementing all she learns in her San Francisco home and getting her husband on board with these changes. She encourages Rosy to manage playtime logistics on her own; they have pajama monsters; there are no toys and no birthday parties. Doucleff thrives in this new setting and shares that Rosy is thriving too as they’ve restructured their world to include alloparents (adults are not the biological parents of a child but provide them guidance and support) and their entire neighborhood as one big autonomy zone.

Clearly, Doucleff feels it’s working for her. But will it work for the rest of us?

Buy Now* | Find it at your library | Sample Doucleff’s Work at NPR

B wearing swimming goggles, as one does, while putting away the mugs

What I Liked

I first read this book when my kid was about 13 months old and it blew my mind. This was at a time when I was fairly active on social media and when you look up nasal aspirators, it turns out Facebook figures you might have a kid, and lo and behold, my entire Instagram feed became nothing but parenting influencers. So here I was bombarded by all this parenting advice and as a new, first-time parent, you can’t help but inhale it. At first, it seems amazing but you quickly realize it’s a double-edged sword that can cut away your confidence and gut instinct. It can paralyze you because it feels like you should have an evidence-based answer to every parenting scenario. But, of course, life doesn’t work like that and every child is different.

So how does a parenting book factor into this? Well, for one, Hunt, Gather, Parent, took away a lot of the pressure I was feeling. It simplified what I felt were the hardest parts of parenting to me: this perpetual need to be always be on. This book was a breath of fresh air—it clearly identified the parts I was struggling with (being child-centered all the time, lack of community support, etc.) and then showed ways to help build a system that could work for me.

What was perhaps the most meaningful to me was the emphasis on community. Not only do we need a village to raise children (shoutout to alloparents!) but it is the desire and necessity of our species to be a part of a community. And this intrinsic need—essentially a survival mechanism—begins when we are still children. So the concept of including children in family life was very appealing. We’re often told to involve young children in our work because it paves the path for a more mature, responsible individual but the community/belonging element is so often left out of the picture. And let’s be real, little kids are incredibly capable if they’re given a chance!

It was also a huge relief to know I wasn’t crazy for not wanting to buy every toy or to ensure that everything I did had some sort of kid-friendly element to it. (To be clear, I don’t think total abstinence from child-focused activities, as the book recommends, is something that’s realistic for modern, Western society). We’ve struck a balance in our family of adult-centered vs child-centered activities and I think it’s made me a much better parent.

Where I Struggled

I loved the explanation of WEIRD (Wester, Educated Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) societies and it was eye-opening on how the research of these societies dominate our understanding of anthropology at large but also the way we view and understand parenting practices. Doucleff lays out how parenting education first began and its evolution over the generations in the first two chapters of the book. If nothing else, I highly recommend reading these chapters; I found them absolutely fascinating.

The problem is that many of us DO live in these WEIRD societies and that means our parenting is constrained by the cultures and values of these places. So some of the advice featured in this book feels incredibly impractical. For example, Doucleff recommends bringing your kids to work and seeing if there are little ways where they can participate. For most of us, there is a clear delineation between home life and work life (so basically, most jobs) and maybe you could get away with it on Bring Your Kid To Work Day but I highly doubt this would become a part of your routine.

And as much as I appreciated being told I don’t need to be my kid’s entertainment planner, the thought of writing off all child-centered activities also seems ludicrous. Ditto for toys. And while I was completely impressed by a child-led sleep routine in the book (and truly understand the value), I am beat by the time bedtime rolls around (no alloparents around here 😭) and my kid is going to bed for her own safety.

Fundamental Criticisms

For every person that loves this book, there’s a person that hates it. I’ve laid out the common criticisms that this book receives and my (hopefully, balanced) take on it:

• Noble savage—many feel that Doucleff almost fetishizes these ancient cultures and touts the superiority of their parenting practices over all others without considering the very real issues these cultures grapple with.

  • My take: Doucleff does acknowledge briefly in the introductory chapters of the book that these cultures are not perfect but her focus in the book will entirely be based on their parenting style. Coming from an ancient culture, I can say that yes, there are many good things but there are just as many bad things. This book is geared towards busy parents who are interested in new tools that can help them and understandably are not necessarily looking for a full anthropologic study of the culture itself. The criticism is valid but I think it overlooks the purpose and intent of this book.

• Parentification of children—in many cultures, older kids tend to look after the younger kids. They are mini alloparents. Doucleff says the Mayan, Inuit, and Hadzabe peoples advocate this as a way for kids to take on more responsibility. A lot of people have a visceral reaction that this is parentification of these kids and robbing them of their childhood.

  • My take: I think the interpretation of what childhood is and should look like is vastly different between WEIRD cultures and ancient cultures. And therein lies the rub. What we see as parentification is a valid way for kids to demonstrate their maturity in these specific communities. I think this is another area where we need to draw a balance—if kids are feeling burdened by caring for younger siblings then there is a real risk of parentification and that load needs to be lightened. Counterpoint, sometimes we are so individualistic we forget that looking after others is an essential part of being in a community and, for kids, the first opportunity they have to contribute in this way is with the younger siblings/kids around them. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been impressed when older kids take B under their wing on the playground.

• Scary stories—I love a good story but even I was taken aback by the use of scary stories to frighten children away from bad behavior. An example from the book is that a sea monster will grab a kid who comes too close to the edge of the sea and keep them. That feels legitimately frightening and it didn’t sit well with me and it doesn’t sit well with a lot of people.

  • My take: I’m someone who values and loves sharing stories with kids (wouldn’t you know it, I even write a newsletter about it! Obligatory plug: please share this newsletter with your family and friends) and the more I thought about it, the more my opinion has changed. Kids know we’re reading stories to them because we’re holding physical books in front of them. But they also know when we’re telling oral stories (i.e. no physical books) because they can hear the theatrics and drama. So the distinction of tone and drama makes it clear to kids that these are stories they can engage with using their imagination but they are not reality. This is where I think it works depending on your kid; if you have a kid who’s sensitive to scary stories, I’d probably bypass this tactic.

• Gender inequality—I think 90% of all the examples and people featured in this book were women. There were very few examples of men in parenting roles and interactions.

  • My take: The book follows ancient cultural practices and in many ancient cultures, traditional gender roles are intact. It wasn’t surprising to me to see such little male representation even though I would have loved to see more of how men can participate in childrearing in these communities. I can understand the disappointment that folks feel not to see men (my husband, who also enjoyed this book, noted how letdown he felt by this) in these important caregiving roles but I find it equally disappointing that this is a “criticism” leveled at the book. To impugn a book based on the culture it highlights seems unfair. I could go into a whole rant about my difficulties with how we judge cultures that are different from ours but right now is neither the time nor the place.

Parting Thoughts

As I mentioned before, with any book that doles out advice (even including this newsletter!), take everything with a grain of salt. Know what applies to you and ruthlessly reject the rest.

This book is worth it to me to read, whether or not you agree with it fundamentally, because it provides a perspective on parenting that is unfamiliar to many of us. Yes, there is a lot of similarity between the tactics shared in the book and the Montessori principles that are ubiquitous. But it’s fascinating to see it enacted in totality within a group of people—where it’s not a choice to parent a certain way; it just is the way.

Another significant aspect that is important to me personally, is the emphasis on our role in our family, our community, and our society at large. What responsibilities do we have to ourselves and those around us? I think this type of thinking isn’t very common in the way we approach parenting and I appreciated the book for broadening my perspective on this. Hailing from India, which is a very community-oriented culture, I’ve always felt the push-pull of community orientation vs high individualism and this book helped me explore that nuance in greater detail.

Having said that, we do live in a culture that is very different from the cultures highlighted in the book. Those cultures have the systemic infrastructure to make these practices work; we don’t. So while the idea of some of these tactics resonates, it glosses over the reality of implementing it in a society that doesn’t have that type of system in place.

One other thing I’ll note, this book doesn’t focus much on sibling relationships. It provides a lot of interesting tools to raise a child but doesn’t delve into how to navigate sibling rivalries and help nurture that bond. Doucleff herself only has one child so the focus on siblings is pretty meager.

Woof. That was a lot. Now let’s hear what you think.

Let’s Talk…

• How would you describe the parenting culture in your area / corner of the world?

• What’s your opinion on the balance of science vs intrinsic parenting?

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