A Literary Prescription for

Parenting

For the hardest, most important work there is, done mostly on no sleep and pure love.

No one is ever quite ready for it, and no one ever fully masters it. Parenting is the great improvisation: exhausting, humbling, and shot through with a love so fierce it takes you by surprise. There is no perfect way to do it, only a million good-enough ones, and a great deal of wisdom to be borrowed from those who have thought and written deeply about raising children. These books and poems are for the doubt and the tenderness, and for the reminder that love, imperfectly given, is enough.

Books Poetry Quotes & Prose

Books

Prescribed reading

Some of these are warm, practical guides from people who have studied children closely, and some are novels that capture the deep, complicated love between parents and their children. Non-fiction and fiction together, they share one steadying message: that you do not have to be perfect, only present, and that the doubt you feel is a sign of how much you care.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish · 1980

The enduring classic of practical parenting, full of simple, transformative ways to communicate with children so that everyone feels heard. Decades on, its scripts and strategies still defuse conflict and build connection better than almost anything since. If you read one parenting book, this is the one that will change your daily life.

The Whole-Brain Child

Daniel J. Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson · 2011

Two experts explain, clearly and kindly, what is actually happening in a child’s developing brain during meltdowns and big feelings, and how to respond. Understanding the ‘why’ makes the hard moments far less baffling. A genuinely useful, compassionate book for anyone who has ever been floored by a small person’s enormous emotions.

Hunt, Gather, Parent

Michaeleen Doucleff · 2021

Doucleff travels to Maya, Inuit and Hadzabe communities to learn gentler, wiser ways of raising children, and returns with humbling, practical lessons for modern parents. Fascinating and freeing, it questions much of what Western parenting takes for granted. A refreshing, horizon-widening read for anyone exhausted by the pressure of doing it ‘right’.

Good Inside

Becky Kennedy · 2022

Kennedy’s warm, reassuring approach starts from the belief that children, and parents, are good inside, even on the worst days. Full of practical scripts and deep compassion, it helps you repair, reconnect and forgive yourself. The perfect book for the guilt-ridden evening after a hard day, and a genuinely kinder way to parent.

The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan · 1989

Tan’s beloved novel weaves the stories of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters, and the love, misunderstanding and inheritance that pass between them. Moving and beautifully told, it illuminates how much of ourselves we hand our children, knowingly and not. A rich, tender read for any parent thinking about what they pass on.

This Is How It Always Is

Laurie Frankel · 2017

Frankel’s warm, wise novel follows a family raising a child who knows early that she is not the boy the world sees, and the fierce, fumbling love with which they try to protect her. Tender and big-hearted, it is a story about accepting your child exactly as they are. Deeply moving for any parent learning to follow rather than lead.

The Light Between Oceans

M. L. Stedman · 2012

Stedman’s haunting novel follows a lighthouse keeper and his wife who make one desperate, loving choice about a child, and live with its consequences. It is a tender exploration of the longing for a child and the fierce, complicated love of raising one. Deeply moving for any parent who understands how far love can carry us.

Poems about parenting

For the children’s hour

from “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod”

Eugene Field, 1889

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
…So shut your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be.

Field’s beloved lullaby has been sung over cradles for well over a century, and its dreamy magic still works. Beneath the nonsense names lies the tenderest of parental wishes: safe passage into sleep, and into wonder. A poem to read aloud in a soft voice at the end of a long day, for the child and for yourself.

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“Infant Joy”

William Blake, 1789

‘I have no name;
I am but two days old.’
What shall I call thee?
‘I happy am,
Joy is my name.’
Sweet joy befall thee!

Blake catches the pure, wordless delight of a brand-new life, and the parent’s answering blessing: sweet joy befall thee. In a handful of lines it holds the whole overwhelming tenderness of a baby’s first days. A gorgeous, tiny poem for anyone still dizzy with love for someone only just arrived.

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from “The Children’s Hour”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1860

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.
…I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet.

Longfellow captures the sweetest interval of a parent’s day: the small window between dark and daylight when the children come clamouring, and everything else can wait. It is a poem about cherishing the ordinary racket of family life while it lasts. A warm, wistful reminder to sink into the children’s hour while you have it.

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Quotes & Prose

Quotes about parenting to keep

Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.

C. S. Lewis

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Your children need your presence more than your presents.

Jesse Jackson

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Children are not things to be moulded, but people to be understood.

Jess Lair

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It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults.

Frederick Douglass

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No one is ever ready, and everyone learns as they go. The love was always enough to start with.

Georgia Clare

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From Georgia

Calm in the chaos

A grounding practice for finding a little calm in the middle of the noise, and an essay on saying the things we most want our children, and loved ones, to know.

Calm in the Chaos

Guided meditation by Georgia Clare

A short, grounding practice for steadying yourself in the busy, noisy heart of family life, so you can meet it with a little more patience.

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The Letters I Never Sent

Personal essay by Georgia Clare · The Library

On the things we most want to say to the people we love, and the quiet importance of finding a way to say them while we can.

Read the Essay →

Why One Small Thing Can Change Your Day

A short talk by Georgia Clare

A short, uplifting talk on how a single small shift, chosen on purpose, can quietly turn a whole day around.

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The 21-Day Meditation Course

Guided Meditation Course · Georgia Clare

Three weeks of short, guided meditations to help you build a calm, steady daily practice, one day at a time.

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Questions people ask

Reading for Parenting

Where should I start?

Start with How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, the practical classic that has calmed more households than almost any other. And if you would rather a story, The Joy Luck Club is a beautiful novel about mothers, daughters and everything that passes, and gets lost, between them. The poems below are worth reading at bedtime.

What can I read to be a better parent?

Books that offer both understanding and calm. The Whole-Brain Child explains what is actually happening in a child’s developing mind, and Good Inside is a warm, forgiving guide for the hard days. Hunt, Gather, Parent looks to other cultures for gentler, wiser ways to raise children. Or begin with the poems and the lines to keep below.

Which quotes about parenting are worth keeping?

Quotes worth keeping include “There is no way to be a perfect parent, and a million ways to be a good one.” (Jill Churchill), “Your children need your presence more than your presents.” (Jesse Jackson) and “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” (C. S. Lewis). You will find these and more in the quotes section above.

Can reading really make me a better parent?

It genuinely can. No one arrives at parenthood knowing how, and the best books hand you both practical tools and, just as importantly, reassurance that the doubt you feel is normal and shared. They help you understand your child, and yourself, with more patience. These are books to lower the pressure rather than raise it, and to remind you that love, imperfectly given, is still the thing that matters most.

Parenting

Prescribed reading

For the children’s hour

Quotes about parenting to keep

Calm in the chaos

Reading for Parenting

Where should I start?

What can I read to be a better parent?

Which quotes about parenting are worth keeping?

Can reading really make me a better parent?

More prescriptions await.