Thousands of books have examined the effects of parents on their children. But almost none have thought to ask: What are the effects of children on their parents?

 

The BEA Buzz Book, now in paperback! In ALL JOY AND NO FUN, award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior analyzes the many ways children reshape their parents' lives, whether it's their marriages, their jobs, their habits, their hobbies, their friendships, or their internal senses of self. She argues that changes in the last half century have radically altered the roles of today's mothers and fathers, making their mandates at once more complex and far less clear. ALL JOY AND NO FUN is the instant New York Times bestseller that The Christian Science Monitor declared "an important book, much the way THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE was, because it offers parents a common language, an understanding that they're not alone."