5 Worst Parenting Books I've Ever Read

I am a sucker for parenting books. The way I see it, parenting is like any other career in that it requires, at the very least, hands-on experience, and, at best, a strong educational background. In my adventures as a book-hungry mom, I have encountered some real gems, but I have also, unfortunately, read books offering disturbingly bad advice. These books take specific principles of parenthood to such extremes that they advocate what is, in my opinion, child abuse.

Here are some of the worst parenting books I have ever read.

Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves (A Guide for Raising a Self-Indulgent Brat)

Author Naomi Aldort has excellent reviews on Amazon, and I've heard many progressive parents talking about what a genius she is. To me, though, this woman's advice is dangerous. Aldort regards all punishments, including time-outs and privilege loss, as child abuse. She advocates eliminating absolutely all punishments from a home in order to "validate" a child's feelings. In Aldort's world, no child should ever be told "no" for any reason. The entire book also reeks of privilege: Alort assumes that all children should (and can) have stay-at-home moms and be homeschooled. I hope to never encounter one of the brats raised by her method.

On Becoming Baby Wise (How to Neglect Your Baby)

This book by Gary Ezzo is not just full of bad advice; it actually seems to advocate child abuse. This evangelical Christian believes that children are born evil, and that the best way to rid them of this evil is by parenting them very strictly from birth onward. Babies are placed on strict feeding and sleeping schedules, a practice that the American Academy of Pediatrics says leads to dehydration and failure to thrive. You don't have to take my word for it here: even the experts regard this lunatic's advice as neglectful.

To Train Up a Child (How to Run a Prison for Kids)

I'm not going to get into the ethics of spanking. I know that there are good parents who do it. I think that all reasonable parents can agree, however, that the advice from fundamentalist parent Michael Pearl is unreasonable. Pearl believes that children need to be conditioned to fearfully submit to their parents' dominion, never asking questions or even thinking about disobeying. For example, Pearl says that parents should linger outside their children's rooms after bed time. If, through a crack in the door, the parent sees the child sit up in bed, he is to rush into the room, spank the child, and then leave without saying a word. It's a great way to teach your kids to feel like prisoners. I read this book in the way I might watch a train wreck.

The Indigo Children (A Parents' Guide to Denying Your Kid Has Problems)

I've got a bit of a New Age edge. I'm not above meditation, alternative medicine, or earth-based spirituality. But, once you start labeling kids with autism and ADD as princes and princesses from the stars, you've lost me. I expected to enjoy this book, but it was nothing but a pseudoscientific excuse for child neglect. It describes children who clearly have severe behavioral or psychological problems-- kids who have either been raised as spoiled brats or were born with serious neurobehavioral conditions like autism-- and explains that they were born to usher the world into a new era of peace on prosperity. It seems to me that somebody laced this crazy author's granola.

Radical Unschooling (How to Educationally Neglect your Children)

I was once fond of the idea of unschooling-- a form of homeschooling that eschews the use of a standard classroom environment and encourages free-form socialization and learning through play. This author, Danya Martin, takes it way too far. Her grammar is so atrocious that it was hard to resist the urge to pull out a red pen and correct every sentence. She openly admits to letting her daughter watch Hannah Montana for up to ten hours a and thinks that no child should ever be asked to do something he doesn't want to do. It's fine for a child to be illiterate at age twelve, she says, because the important thing is for him to be happy. To emphasize just how happy she and her family are, she makes a point to use the word "joyful" at least twice in every paragraph. Don't read this book if you're prone to nausea or allergic to terrible parenting.

I bear the emotional scars gained through reading dozens of terrible parenting books, but at least, through these, I have gotten a better idea of what I believe as a parent and how I want to raise my child. What's the worst parenting book you've ever read?