Book about repudiating the strict disciplinarian parenthood model

November 21, 2011 7:12 PM

Looking for a book title. The book is about the change in parental-child relationships from the strict disciplinarian-distant parent model of old to the parent/friend relationship that many people embrace today. The book describes how the former model—in place around the world for centuries—led to martial societies, culminating in the bloodiest century in history before many of us began to throw out the old parenting model.
posted by Tom Blees to Human Relations (4 answers total)

George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant?
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:33 PM on November 21, 2011

Could it be Lawrence Stone's book on the family? If so, it's a very dated (and not well received) book. Best thing I've read on family relationships in the past (14-15th century England) is Barbara Hanawalt's The Ties that Bound. She did research on real families and found that parents and children had affectionate relationships, at least in the lower classes.
posted by jb at 8:39 PM on November 21, 2011

Centuries of Childhood, by Philippe Aries?
posted by jamjam at 9:27 PM on November 21, 2011

This chapter, from Lloyd deMause, "Patriarchal Families and National Wars"?
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:46 AM on November 22, 2011