MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewHunt, Gather, Parent — a book about what harried Western mothers can learn from their supposedly serene Indigenous counterparts — opens in the style of an addiction memoir ... Thus begins another addition to the now extensive literature, mostly written for Americans by Americans, about the sensible, calmer ways that people in other countries raise kids. (I’m guilty of adding to the pile.) These books are in response to the rising and sometimes ridiculous demands of modern American parenting, which is practiced in weaker form in many other countries, too ... She claims to discover methods that are \'tens of thousands of years\' old and practiced around the world, yet missing from other parenting books ... full of smart ideas that I immediately wanted to force on my own kids. (I wish I’d read it at the start of the pandemic, when I made their chore charts.) Doucleff is a dogged reporter who’s good at observing families and breaking down what they’re doing. Not all her findings are groundbreaking .... The book works better as parenting guide than anthropology. Some of Doucleff’s interviewees come off as noble savages brimming with nothing but kindness.
