Family Unfriendly: A Critical Examination of Overparenting and Its Consequences

The bestselling author of Alienated America traveled the country asking families and experts the same two questions: Why is parenting so hard now? And why are the results so bad?

Our culture tells parents there’s one best way to raise kids: enroll them in a dozen activities, protect them from trauma, and get them into the most expensive college you can. If you can’t do that, don’t bother.

How is that going? Record rates of anxiety, depression, medication, debts, loneliness and more. In Family Unfriendly , bestselling author and Washington Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney says it’s time to end this failed experiment in overparenting.

Have more kids, have more fun, cancel the travel soccer games, let your kids wander off, and give them deeper sources of meaning than material success.

This is an old-fashioned view, but every day the evidence validates it. Drawing on rigorous research―both as a reporter and as a dad of six―Carney demonstrates why the parental anxiety endemic to modern parenting is so misguided. The high standards set for modern American parenting are unrealistic and setting parents―and our kids―up to fail.

Researched over three years and written in between rec baseball games and church picnics where nobody was watching the kids, Family Unfriendly is deeply wise, energetically told, and destined to be one of the most consequential parenting books in years.

Family Unfriendly is a manifesto for a different way, offering sanity-saving, research-backed principles for today’s parents:

Helicopter Parenting: Why the travel teams, endless activities, and achievement-obsessed culture are burning out parents and kids―and how to reclaim your weekends and your sanity. Childhood Independence: Discover the research-backed benefits of letting kids be kids, from playing unsupervised to finding their own way home when the streetlights turn on. Counter-Cultural Parenting: A practical guide to giving children deeper sources of meaning than material success and Ivy League admissions. A Return to Community: Learn from the author’s experience as a dad of six how to build a ‘village’ where neighbors, church picnics, and rec baseball replace the pressure to be a perfect parent.