Playing House by Lauren Slater
Acclaimed author Lauren Slater ruminates on what it means to be family.Lauren Slater's rocky childhood left her cold to the idea of ever creating a family of her own, but a husband, two dogs, two children, and three houses later, she came around to the challenges, trials, and unexpected rewards of playing house. In these autobiographical pieces, Slater presents snapshots of domestic life, populating them with the gritty details and jarring realities of sharing home, life, and body in the curious institution called "family." She asks difficult questions and probes unsettling truths about sex, love, and parenting. In these pages, Slater introduces us to her struggles with her mother, her determination to make a home of her own, her compromises in deciding to marry (her conflicts manifesting as an affair on the eve of her wedding), her initial struggle to connect with her newborn child, and the dilemmas of mothering with a mental illness. She writes openly about her decision to abort her second pregnancy and her later decision to have a second child after all. She tells us about the searing decision to have elective double mastectomy and how her love for her husband was magically rekindled after she saw him catch fire in a chemical accident.
It's not all mastectomies and chemical fires, though. Slater digs into the everyday challenges of family living, from buying a lemon of a car and fighting back menacing weeds to gaining weight and being jealous of the nanny. Beautifully written, often humorous, and always revealing, these stories scrutinize the complex questions surrounding family life, offering up sometimes uncomfortable truths.
Lauren Slater, Ed.D., is a psychologist and Knight-Ridder Science Journalist Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her writing has appeared in The Best American Science Writing 2002, and she is the author of numerous books, including Prozac Diary and Welcome to My Country. Jessica Henderson Daniel, Ph.D., ABPP, is director of training in psychology at Children's Hospital, Boston, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and past president of the Society for the Psychology of Women in the American Psychological Association. Amy Elizabeth Banks, M.D., is Medical Director for Mental Health at the Fenway Community Health Center, an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and a faculty member at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780807061121 |
| ISBN 10 | 0807061123 |
| Title | Playing House |
| Author | Lauren Slater |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Beacon Press |
| Year published | 2015-07-14 |
| Number of pages | 206 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |