The Eros of Parenthood: Explorations in Light and Dark

by Noelle Oxenhandler

Book Overview

Leaning over a sleeping child or waiting for a small dripping body to emerge from the tub, what parent hasn't felt the pull of contradictory emotions: the rush of tenderness, the pang of anxiety? We know that the physical love between parent and child is both natural and necessary, yet it's a subject we're afraid to approach - indeed, it's been called "the last taboo." In language both lyrical and provocative, The Eros of Parenthood explores this...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312269765
• ISBN13: 9780312269760
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Golden Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

gaps

From personal experience, the writer speaks of the similarities and differences between healthy parental affection and sexual affection. I am sure that many parents can relate with what the author says. In one chapter, she says what needs to be said about sexual abuse hysteria in the United States. (That's one reason I'm overseas: to escape from the sexual abuse hysteria!) However, the author also neglected a great deal of research on children's features and gestures which tend to arouse parental affection. For those interested in the subject, I recommend the work of Lorenz (0674846311), Eibl-Eibesfeldt (020202038X), and Guthrie (0442229828).

Brilliant and beautiful

Wonderfully beautiful prose wrapped around a thorough examination of the ways we enter into the physicality of a child's world, of parenting infants, toddlers, adolescents, and the current indictments of that physical relationship. Intellectually brilliant, linguistically rich, these essays cast the relationships between parent and child into a new and necessary light, and reaffirms the importance of touch in the growth of a child, and the emergence of a parent

Oxenhandler Gets It "Just Right"

The Eros of Parenthood is a sensitive exploration of a very hot topic: managing the intensely sensual experience of child-rearing in a culture as attuned to sexual abuse as ours is.I have worked in the field of child sexual abuse for many years, and know very well how widespread the problem is and how serious the consequences can be. Therefore, I read Oxenhandler's book with some fear that she would "pile on" in the current attacks against people who have raised awareness about sexual abuse.But Oxenhandler successfully balances her impassioned advocacy for the bonds of passion between parents and children and her knowledge that sexual abuse is a reality. In fact, she uses Goldilocks's quest to find the "just right" between two extremes -- in this case, the extremes of frigid lack of touch on one hand, and sexual abuse on the other -- as an organizing trope throughout her book.Oxenhandler's book is not a quick read. It is subtle, nuanced, exploratory, beautifully written -- a perfect fit for her subject. Every parent who has been overwhelmed by love and the sheer joy of physical intimacy with a child will find relief, friendship, and intelligent, sensitive guidance in this wonderful, essential, and timely book.

Evocative writing combined with close scrutiny

Noelle Oxenhandler's "The Eros of Parenthood" combines evocative writing with a close scrutiny of the great pleasures and considerable dangers in close bonds between children and parents. What's unique about this book is the way Ms Oxenhandler writes with the intimacy of memoir, making the reader feel very close to the experiences she describes from her own childhood and her relationship with her daughter, and at the same time gives us just the right amount of information about parent-child bonds. "Just rightness" is truly the theme of this fine book--encouragement to all of us to trust that we will get the right balance between being intimate with out children and not invading their psyches or bodies. So many books that might be called "popular psychology" are cold and distant; "The Eros of Parenthood" feels like listening to a friend, and friend of friends, describing the difficult times, the rewarding times, with their children. So much of our spontaneity has been curbed as we imagine that we might be doing something wrong, or what could be construed as wrong, when we show our love to our children in ways we know are entirely right; "The Eros of Parenthood" tells us that we are doing a good thing by loving our children, that we know in our hearts and minds when that love isn't appropriate and we won't go there. "Eros of Parenthood" is unique and beautiful in so many ways that I recommend it with great enthusiasm. B. L. Baer, Floreant Press, California.

Dare, if you will, to read...

This is a beautiful book addressing complex and dynamic elements of parenting. The writing is sweet, dramatic, sensual and educated. It dares to be politically incorrect and encourages a return to intimate mothering that has been lost via feminism and day care. As a new mom, I was overwhelmed with feelings of intimacy for my baby son...I had no idea. I read the chapters, underlined, and tearfully re-read the moving paragraphs to my husband when he got home at night. Oxenhandler succinctly captures the power of a child's love for his momma, the smiles that light up a parent's heart, as well as the darker side of sensuality between parent and child. It is a well-researched, albeit brave and scary, text.