Simplify Your Life With Kids: 1 Ways to make Family Life Easier and More Fun [Hardcover]

The book opens with a scenario in which a mother has forgotten to pick up her child and the child is stranded somewhere late in the evening while she tries to figure out a way to get someone else to go pick him up now that she's home and needs to make dinner. This did not bode well for the rest of the book [for those of us who don't routinely completely forget about our children and leave them alone in public places late at night....]

Much of the advice in this book falls into the category of "simplify your life with children by paying someone else to deal with the little brats". There is much about how parents should put their children in day care all day [and don't EVER let your child think they have the ability to cause you to delay your departure because of their pathetic tears, etc, etc, etc] and then get a sitter to care for the children in the evenings so mom can have "Me" time and parents can have "Us" time. Apparently, if you schedule 2 hours of "quality time" on Sunday afternoon with your kids, that's really all they need.

There was also a big push to teach the kids "self sufficiency" - as in, your 5 year old really can get his own breakfast so he doesn't "bother" you. I'm all for self sufficient kids and encouraging my children to be strong and independant, but too much of this book was geared towards forcing your kids to basically survive without any parental assistance or interaction - yeah... I guess that would be simplier than actually caring for your kids yourself. At least until they turn 13 and get put in jail for shooting up the school or something.

There were a few good ideas in this book, but not nearly enough to warrant wading through all the bad parenting advice and depressing disregard for children's well being. "Shelter for the Spirit" by Victoria Moran includes some great chapters on re-prioritizing and simplifying that are very child-friendly and would lead to strong parent-child relationships. In my opinion, parents would do better to read what Moran has to say and skip this particular book by St. James.

On top of the other reviewers' comments that St. James' suggestions are too simplistic and sometimes even harmful, I would add that if I had the money to implement all of her "simple" suggestions, I would move out of the country and greatly simplify my life. Her suggestions to single parents to "buy used" and steer cleer of impulse purchases are patronizing and sorely out of touch. Further, her assumptions about "male" and "female" traits and roles are not relevant to the lives of anyone I know.

St. James should stick with material she knows.