Hunt, Gather, Parent
What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans
Table of Contents
About The Book
The oldest cultures in the world have mastered the art of raising happy, well-adjusted children. What can we learn from them?
“Hunt, Gather, Parent is full of smart ideas that I immediately wanted to force on my own kids.” —Pamela Druckerman, The New York Times Book Review
When Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff becomes a mother, she examines the studies behind modern parenting guidance and finds the evidence frustratingly limited and often ineffective. Curious to learn about more effective parenting approaches, she visits a Maya village in the Yucatán Peninsula. There she encounters moms and dads who parent in a totally different way than we do—and raise extraordinarily kind, generous, and helpful children without yelling, nagging, or issuing timeouts. What else, Doucleff wonders, are Western parents missing out on?
In Hunt, Gather, Parent, Doucleff sets out with her three-year-old daughter in tow to learn and practice parenting strategies from families in three of the world’s most venerable communities: Maya families in Mexico, Inuit families above the Arctic Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. She sees that these cultures don’t have the same problems with children that Western parents do. Most strikingly, parents build a relationship with young children that is vastly different from the one many Western parents develop—it’s built on cooperation instead of control, trust instead of fear, and personalized needs instead of standardized development milestones.
Maya parents are masters at raising cooperative children. Without resorting to bribes, threats, or chore charts, Maya parents rear loyal helpers by including kids in household tasks from the time they can walk. Inuit parents have developed a remarkably effective approach for teaching children emotional intelligence. When kids cry, hit, or act out, Inuit parents respond with a calm, gentle demeanor that teaches children how to settle themselves down and think before acting. Hadzabe parents are experts on raising confident, self-driven kids with a simple tool that protects children from stress and anxiety, so common now among American kids.
Not only does Doucleff live with families and observe their methods firsthand, she also applies them with her own daughter, with striking results. She learns to discipline without yelling. She talks to psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, and sociologists and explains how these strategies can impact children’s mental health and development. Filled with practical takeaways that parents can implement immediately, Hunt, Gather, Parent helps us rethink the ways we relate to our children, and reveals a universal parenting paradigm adapted for American families.
Reading Group Guide
In the years since its publication, Michaeleen Doucleff’s Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans, the revolutionary book has transformed parenting in Western culture and has become only more relevant. In its pages, Doucleff shares the ups and downs (especially the downs) of her own parenting experience and brings readers along on an exciting journey to learn from three cultures that mastered the art of parenting long ago. Along with her daughter, Rosy, Doucleff visits Maya, Inuit, and Hadzabe villages and, blending her observations with research, shows how these cultures offer cures to the most common parenting ailments. Hunt, Gather, Parent includes tips and practices for you to apply to your own parenting and is at once wise, heartfelt, entertaining, and groundbreaking.
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the author chose to open with her own vulnerable account of parenting struggles? Did this change how you received the rest of the book?
2. Why do you think Western psychology has so heavily ignored Eastern cultures?
3. Early in the book, the author says that the major problem in parenting today is that we are “looking at the parenting landscape through a tiny keyhole,” of the Western perspective, which makes kids “more anxious and also less prepared for the unpredictable” (pages 6–7). Does this explain some of what you have observed in modern parenting and why you felt the need to read such a book in the first place?
4. How might a chore chart inhibit a child from learning the Maya concept of acomedido?
5. What are the three steps to teaching anything? (See chapter 4, on Maya parenting.).
6. Why do you think Western parents often underestimate how capable a young child can be at helping the family?
7. Look at the graphic on page 149. Can you think of specific moments when you have inadvertently modeled anger for your child? What aout moments when your own parents modeled anger for you?
8. The author encourages adults to develop a habit of calmly walking away when angry with their children. How is this different from suppressing anger?
9. In what ways does “the look,” popularly used in Inuit cultures, communicate more clearly to children than frustrated words?
10. What is the gift economy, and how does it relate to the Hadzabe approach to parenting?
11. What is the difference between independence and autonomy, as observed in Hadzabe parenting? How would you describe the differences between Hadzabe and Western parents?
12. How does Benjamin Reiss’s discovery about sleep in Western culture pertain to your own parenting habits (and how you might refine them)?
13. How does minimal interference reduce conflict? And in what small ways can you begin practicing it with your children?
14. After reading Hunt, Gather, Parent, do you feel more empowered as a parent? Do you believe the author successfully helped give the power back to the parents (and out of the hands of male doctors and other outdated sources of parenting advice, for example)?
15. Was there a particular section of the book—focused on one specific culture’s parenting—that you found most surprising? Why? What does this say about your own parenting? Discuss as a group.
16. The author claims that Western cultures struggling so much with parenting because they “go against the natural instincts of children” (page 25). After reading the book, can you name examples of going against these instincts in the author’s parenting of Rosie? What about your own parenting?
Activities:
1. Try keeping a weekly or otherwise periodic TEAM chart to fill out with examples of when you practiced each of the four concepts in your own parenting. Reflect on this practice and experience as a group and discuss what may have changed over time.
2. Have everyone in your book club spend a short amount of time researching parenting in another culture (not your own and not the three observed in this book). Come back together and share three to four interesting and useful facts you learned that you can try applying to your own parenting.
3. Write a letter addressed to each one of your children. Express your challenges and struggles together, as well as your hopes and dreams for their development. Put a date on it and place it somewhere you will remember. In six months, then again in a year, return to the letter(s). Do you observe any changes in yourself or in your interactions? Were any challenges minimized, even a little bit, or did any goals inch closer to fulfillment? Discuss.
About The Author
Michaeleen Doucleff, PhD, has reported on children’s health for NPR’s science desk for more than a decade. In 2015, she was part of the team that earned a George Foster Peabody Award for its coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. She has a doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor of science from the California Institute of Technology. Before joining NPR, Doucleff completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. She lives with her husband and daughter in Alpine, Texas, and is the author of the New York Times bestseller Hunt, Gather, Parent and Dopamine Kids.
Product Details
- Publisher: Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster (March 2, 2021)
- Length: 352 pages
- ISBN13: 9781982149673
Raves and Reviews
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER
USA TODAY BESTSELLER
“Hunt, Gather, Parent is 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.”
—Pamela Druckerman, The New York Times Book Review
“Deeply researched . . . [Doucleff] takes care to portray her subjects not as curiosities ‘frozen in time,’ but instead as modern-day families who have held on to invaluable child-rearing techniques that likely date back tens of thousands of years.”
—The Atlantic
“Parents: You don’t have to go to kid birthday parties anymore! Or awkwardly straddle playground equipment! Or create chore charts! In her funny, honest, and practical book, Michaeleen Doucleff collects ancient wisdom that can restore sanity to parenting.”
—Amanda Ripley, New York Times bestselling author of The Smartest Kids in the World and High Conflict
“THIS IS THE PARENTING BOOK I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!! Frustrated by the challenges of being a new parent, investigative journalist Michaeleen Doucleff straps her kid on her back and travels thousands of miles to learn why and how indigenous cultures seem to raise kids to be far more skilled, confident, and content than the kids back at home. Armed with respect and curiosity, Doucleff realizes that incessant communication with her child while attempting to control every small thing leads her child to feel anxiety and act out. And that giving a child autonomy while building a loving connection yields highly skilled kids who cooperate, regulate their emotions, and pitch in without waiting to be asked. Smart, humbling, and revealing, Hunt, Gather, Parent should force a re-set of modern American parenting and return a healthier and happier childhood to both parents and children.”
—Julie Lythcott-Haims, New York Times bestselling author of How to Raise an Adult and Real American
“Michaeleen Doucleff’s Hunt, Gather, Parent breathes a gust of fresh air onto the parenting bookshelf. She gives us a whole new way of looking at raising kids, and it is so beautifully intuitive even as it runs counter to everything we have been taught as Western parents. I loved all the families she introduces us to, the landscapes she brings to life, and her honesty about her relationships with her own daughter. It really does take a village to raise a child, and it is pure joy to follow Michaeleen and Rosy from village to village seeing how it can be done. I can’t wait to talk to other parents about this book.”
—Angela C. Santomero, creator, head writer, and executive producer of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and Blue’s Clues, and author of Radical Kindness and Preschool Clues
“Most of our greatest parenting challenges, such as how to instill helpfulness, kindness, and confidence in little ones, aren’t problems at all in other cultures. Michaeleen Doucleff travels far and wide to observe firsthand how parents in non-Western societies have successfully nurtured these traits in children for centuries, and she shares their effective strategies in this very readable book. Hunt, Gather, Parent is the new required reading for moms and dads seeking wise and creative solutions to our most vexing parenting dilemmas.”
—David F. Lancey, PhD, author of The Anthropology of Childhood and Raising Children: Surprising Insights from Other Cultures
“A lively account of traveling with her three-year-old daughter Rosy ‘to the corners of the world’ to research parenting techniques . . . Doucleff includes specific and manageable instructions for parents, and end-of-chapter summaries include extra resources. Parents will find Doucleff’s curiosity contagious and guidance encouraging.”
—Publishers Weekly
“An intriguing study that should be useful to parents from any culture, especially those who are at their wits’ end with their rambunctious, untamed children. . . . Eye-opening looks at how ancient techniques can benefit modern parents.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This book is filled with accessible, practical information and anecdotes that can help parents address challenges they may face.”
—Jamie Herndon, Book Riot
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