- Lileks, James.
Mommy Knows Worst.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005.
ISBN 1-4000-8228-5.
-
Why did we baby boomers end up so doggone weird? Maybe it's thanks
to all the “scientific” advice our parents received from “experts” who
seemed convinced that despite millennia of ever-growing human
population, new parents didn't have the slightest clue what do with
babies and small children. James Lileks, who is emerging as one of
the most talented and prolific humorists of this young century,
collects some of the very best/worst of such advice in this volume,
along with his side-splitting comments, as in the earlier volumes on
food
and
interior decoration. Flip the pages and
learn, as our parents did, why babies should be turned regularly as
they broil in the Sun (pp. 36–42), why doping little
snookums with opiates to make the bloody squaller shut up is a bad
idea (pp. 44–48), why everything should be boiled, except for
those which should be double boiled (pp. 26, 58–59,
65–68), plus the perfect solution for baby's ears that stick out like
air scoops (pp. 32–33). This collection is laugh-out-loud
funny from cover to cover; if you're looking for more in this
vein, be sure to visit
The Institute of Official Cheer
and other features on the author's
Web site
which now includes a weekly audio broadcast.
December 2005 