A World of Babies : Imagined Childcare Guides for Eight Societies

This second edition of A World of Babies brings alive childcare practices in eight contemporary societies, examining the effects that immigration, globalization, war and poverty have on parenting. The book is fully revised and updated, and presented in a unique and creative format of imagined advice manuals to parents.

Should babies sleep alone in cribs, or in bed with parents? Is talking to babies useful, or a waste of time? A World of Babies provides different answers to these and countless other childrearing questions, precisely because diverse communities around the world hold drastically different beliefs about parenting. While celebrating that diversity, the book also explores the challenges that poverty, globalization and violence pose for parents. Fully updated for the twenty-first century, this edition features a new introduction and eight new or revised case studies that directly address contemporary parenting challenges, from China and Peru to Israel and the West Bank. Written as imagined advice manuals to parents, the creative format of this book brings alive a rich body of knowledge that highlights many models of baby-rearing - each shaped by deeply held values and widely varying cultural contexts. Parenthood may never again seem a matter of ''common sense''.