I wish Christine Gross-Loh had written this book about 14 years ago when I was first becoming a mother. I’m pretty sure it would have been my parenting bible. There were plenty of parenting books around back then when I had my first child, but I quickly realized that the philosophies often contradicted each other, and I would end up following common sense, and ditching the structured advice more often than not anyways. By the time I had my second child I had stopped reading parenting books altogether. What I like about Christine Gross-Loh’s new book Parenting Without Borders is that it looks at the results, the way kids behave as an outcome of cultural child rearing practices that point to real success in various areas of development. The author became aware of differing international parenting styles after living in Japan with her small children and then moving back to the U.S.. Suddenly what she would have previously taken as normal parenting, stood out to her as distinctively American parenting, and she realized it wasn’t always the best way to do things. This set off years of international research on parenting styles around the world for her. Eventually it informed her ultimate international patchwork of parenting style with her own kids.
It makes so much sense, we share best practices in many ways cross-culturally, why not parenting? 
Sure, I had done a ton of traveling before having kids myself, but as a single young woman for most of the time, I can’t say that I was absorbing much parenting advice along the way. Along with Documama, I write and Edit for World Moms Blog, a community of bloggers and moms from around the world. We learn so much, and gain such understanding from each other by sharing our experiences, and advice as technology is making the world a smaller place.
The book illustrates how other cultures can show us how to bring our children up to expect less stuff like the kids in Japan, be more healthful eaters as in France and Italy, or more independent thinkers like the kids in Sweden. There aspects in which the author believes our American parenting style is superior too. The point of this book is that we can pull together lessons from around the world for the most balanced possible outcome. Our children, the children of this upcoming generation, will inevitably be global citizens weather brought up that way or not. We might as well get started!
*I received a free copy of Parenting Without Borders for the purpose of this book review, as always my opinions are honest and my own, and are never swayed by outside influences.
