Momma Said Blog Tour: Jen Singer’s New Book

For all the moms of infants and toddlers, you’ll want to tune in to Jen Singer and her new book, “Stop Second Guessing Yourself — The Toddler Years.” For her stop on the MTN blog, I asked her questions about parenting toddlers and tweens.

Tell us about your new book and why you wrote it.

Jen: It’s mom tested advice and validation.  I wanted to write the antithesis to the What to Expect books–something relatable and funny.

It seems like there is so much pressure on mothers to raise the best, most creative kids ever.  For example, I read that the reason why Asian cultures produce more prodigies is the value theses cultures place on nurturing talent in children at a very early age.  A toddler banging on a piano will be put into early piano lessons or steered towards the violin.  What’s your reaction?

Jen:  The bar for parenting has been raised so impossibly high that we’re all burning out trying to reach it.  We need to get back to basics and let our kids entertain themselves and be creative before we burn them out too.

What other projects are you working on?  As the mother of tweens, are you going to write a book about this challenging age group?

Jen:  I blog about parenting tweens for Good Housekeeping.com.  Today’s tweens are bombarded with media that we didn’t have.  It’s important that we learn fast how to not only protect our kids from the dark side of the Internet, but how to navigate this new world of social media.  The not-so-flattering photo they post to their MySpace page will still be on the Internet somewhere long after they wise up and take it down.  We parents have to figure out how to safeguard our kids’ futures without quashing their social lives in a way that our parents never had to.

Anything else you want to say about your new book and your great website?

Jen: The entire Stop Second Guessing Yourself parenting series is about restoring moms’ faith in their ability to parent–with laughs as a bonus.