Emily Oster’s “Expecting Better” might just be the most peer-recommended pregnancy guide since its publication, in 2013. Parents pass it along to parents-to-be with a certain reverence, sharing it as the book that comforted and informed in equal measure. In a profile of Oster, from 2019, Lizzie Widdicombe called the author—who is an economist, first and foremost—a “data wonk,” and noted that her focus on the hard numbers has helped many soon-to-be mothers soothe the anxiety of being with child.
Becky Kennedy, known as Dr. Becky, has similarly eased plenty of fretful parents with her highly popular method, Good Inside, (also developed as a book and a podcast), which advocates for finding the reason behind a child’s behavior. “Kennedy encourages parents to privilege making connections over meting out consequences,” Jessica Winter wrote, in 2023, when she interviewed the psychologist. Asked what opportunities she sees in this complicated political moment for parents, Kennedy told Winter, “Our kids need us to be sturdy leaders, and sturdy leaders take care of themselves.”
On Sunday, October 25th, Oster and Kennedy will be appearing at The New Yorker Festival, in conversation with the physician and the contributing writer Dhruv Khullar. (Get your tickets!) But, first, we had some questions for both of them, and they had some recommendations to share.
Our exchange has been edited and condensed.
What book has changed how you think about parenting?
Emily Oster: “The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano,” by Donna Freitas. In this novel, a woman who does not initially want children lives out nine different lives. In some lives, she has a baby. In others, she does not. The decision to have a child changes your path forever, and few books I’ve read really engage with what the other path would have looked like.
Becky Kennedy: “Internal Family Systems Therapy,” by Richard Schwartz. I’ve been incredibly influenced by the idea that we all have different parts of us, and that all those parts serve an important role. A parent can have a part of them that says, Oh, my goodness, I just yelled at my kid. I’m turning into a monster. I mess everything up, and still find another voice that reminds them, I had a really bad moment. I can repair. This doesn’t define me. And I think one of the most powerful things we can give kids early on is that same understanding: their feelings and thoughts are part of them, but not all of them.
Can you recommend a book that is comforting, or distracting, for those tough times in parenthood?
Oster: I go for distraction—Emily Henry, Anabel Monaghan, Jenny Jackson. Basically, if there’s a picture of a lady in a sun hat on the beach on the cover, it’s for me.
Kennedy: “Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!,” by Kate Bowler. She describes hard things in life with such precision, always making me pause and just think, Yes. That. Exactly that. I’ve probably taken pictures of forty different pages and sent them to friends going through very specific hard moments.
What fiction do you feel best represents caregiving?
Kennedy: “Everything I Never Told You,” by Celeste Ng. This book captures what strikes me as one of the central problems of parenting: I can love my child deeply, and my own stuff can still prevent me from seeing them clearly. We bring our own histories, fears, hopes, and unmet needs into parenting, often without realizing it. The tragedy in this book is an extreme version of what can happen when the child we think we know and the child actually living in front of us become too far apart.
What is your favorite book to read with your kids?
Oster: Easily the “Ramona” books, by Beverly Cleary, which resonate completely with kids and adults. My children are old now, but, every now and then, one of them will still bring up the time that Ramona “boing-ed” Susan’s curls. (Sidenote: When you are tired of reading out loud, Stockard Channing narrates the audiobooks.)
Kennedy: For younger kids, “Poe Won’t Go,” by Kelly DiPucchio. I love this book because it shows the power of understanding. Understanding bad behavior isn’t condoning it; understanding is often a precondition for actually changing behavior. And I love that it’s a child who ultimately solves the town’s problem—only the child sees what all the adults miss. Kids are incredibly curious and creative, and this book puts that on full display. Plus, it’s super fun to read out loud.
For older kids and teens, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” by David Grann. My son would say this is one of his favorite books, and I love giving older kids books that don’t underestimate them. It reads like a gripping mystery, but it also exposes them to a part of American history they may know very little about and raises big questions about power, greed, justice, and whose stories get told. I love a book that a teen-ager genuinely can’t put down, wants to talk about, and which makes them also realize, Wait, this actually happened.
Do you have a preferred evergreen parenting guide from an earlier era?
Kennedy: “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk,” by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. I love how practical and sensible this book is. It takes kids and their feelings seriously while still recognizing that parents are parents. So much of the advice holds up remarkably well decades later. I also love their book “Siblings Without Rivalry.”
Oster: “Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care,” the 1985 edition. “You know more than you think you do,” the book’s mantra, is the antithesis of a lot of what we now hear online, which is closer to “You’re definitely messing this up.” There are some parts where the science has changed, but, for over-all vibes, Spock wins.
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Everybody’s talking about:
The new “Sense and Sensibility” film adaptation is out this weekend. The staff writer Rebecca Mead, reporting from the U.K., makes note of a critical difference between this movie and the original book:
“In all the many reworkings of Jane Austen’s novels, from ‘Clueless’ to ‘Longbourn,’ there’s one offstage character whose story has as yet gone unmined: Eliza Williams, in ‘Sense and Sensibility.’ She’s the sixteen-year-old ward of Colonel Brandon, who has been seduced, impregnated, and abandoned by the charming John Willoughby. By the time Marianne Dashwood unwisely falls for Willoughby, the ruined Eliza and her inconvenient infant have been dispatched to the obscurity of the countryside.
“The new movie adaptation, directed by Georgia Oakley, deals with this teen-pregnancy subplot by eliminating it: for contemporary audiences, it’s one thing for Willoughby to ghost Marianne—so far, so recognizable—but quite another for him to have sex with a young girl ten years his junior, then to claim in his defense that just because he was a libertine doesn’t make her a saint. Yuck. Our sensibilities may be able to cope with Willoughby as a cad, but not as—to put it generously—a creep. Eliza has been failed not just by Willoughby but also by her supposed protector Brandon, who goes on to marry Marianne. Left holding the baby, what would be Eliza’s version of the story?”
Coming soon:
- Lawrence Wright, a New Yorker staff writer since 1992, has a new book out on October 20th called “Redemption: Faith, Justice, and Sisterhood on Death Row.” Like his piece for the magazine, it’s about the relationship between a group of Texas nuns and the death-row inmates of a women’s prison.
- The first-ever authorized biography of Larry David is also out on the 20th: “Emperor of Nothing,” by Blake J. Harris.
P.S. Also appearing at the New Yorker Festival: the Pulitzer Prize nominee Ben Lerner—the author of “Transcription”—and Valeria Luiselli, whose latest book, “Beginning Middle End,” is a finalist for this year’s National Book Award for Fiction. Newsletter readers receive a twenty-per-cent discount on tickets to this event with the code BOOKS20. 📖