Child, Please

Book excerpt: In this wise and funny memoir, Ylonda Gault Caviness describes her journey to the realization that all the parenting advice she was obsessively devouring as a new parent (and sharing with the world as a parenting expert and journalist) didn't mean scratch compared to her mama's old-school wisdom as a strong black woman and mother. With child number one, Caviness set her course: to give her children everything she had. Child number two came along and she patiently persisted. But when her third child arrived, Caviness was so exhausted that she decided to listen to what her mother had been saying all along: Give them everything they want, and there'll be nothing left of you. In Child, Please, Caviness describes the road back to embracing a more sane--not to mention loving--way of raising children. Her mother had it right all along.