Andrew Bomback

A Cultural History of Modern Parenting

Long Days, Short Years

David Barringer

Dan Kennedy

Ryan Boudinot

Lee Klein

Pasha Malla

Arthur Bradford

Susannah Breslin

Elizabeth Ellen

Susan Townsend

John Leary

Dennis Dillingham

Pia Ehrhardt

Shauna McKenna

Damon Stewart

The third print issue by both literary journals - Hobart and Monkeybicycle - it features full issues by each in a flip-cover double-issue style. Hobart features stories by Andrew Bomback, Pia Ehrhardt, Elizabeth Ellen and John Leary and artwork by Andrew Feuk. Monkeybicycle features stories by David Barringer, Ryan Boudinot, Susannah Breslin, Dan Kennedy and an exquisite corpse by Arthur Bradford, Ed Page, Whitney Pastorek Shya Scanlon, Steven Seighman and Claire Zulkey.

Hobart/Monkeybicycle #3

How parenting became a verb, from Dr. Spock and June Cleaver to baby whispering and free-range kids. When did “parenting” become a verb? Why is it so hard to parent, and so rife with the possibility of failure? Sitcom families of the past—the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Conners—didn’t seem to lose any sleep about their parenting methods. Today, parents are likely to be up late, doomscrolling on parenting websites. In Long Days, Short Years, Andrew Bomback—physician, writer, and father of three young children—looks at why it can be so much fun to be a parent but, at the same time, so frustrating and difficult to parent. It’s not a “how to” book (although Bomback has read plenty of these) but a “how come” book, investigating the emergence of an immersive, all-in approach to raising children that has made parenting a competitive (and often not very enjoyable) sport. Drawing on parenting books, mommy blogs, and historical accounts of parental duties as well as novels, films, podcasts, television shows, and his own experiences as a parent, Bomback charts the cultural history of parenting as a skill to be mastered, from the laid-back Dr. Spock’s 1950s childcare bible—in some years outsold only by the actual Bible—to the more rigid training schedules of Babywise. Along the way, he considers the high costs of commercialized parenting (from the babymoon on), the pressure on mothers to have it all (and do it all), scripted parenting as laid out in How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, parenting during a pandemic, and much more.

"How parenting has, over the last half century, emerged as a pervasive verb that invokes extremes of joy, guilt, pride, anxiety, and responsibility"--

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. A 3-year-old asks her physician father about his job, and his inability to provide a succinct and accurate answer inspires a critical look at the profession of modern medicine. In sorting through how patients, insurance companies, advertising agencies, filmmakers, and comedians misconstrue a doctor's role, Andrew Bomback, M.D., realizes that even doctors struggle to define their profession. As the author attempts to unravel how much of doctoring is role-playing, artifice, and bluffing, he examines the career of his father, a legendary pediatrician on the verge of retirement, and the health of his infant son, who is suffering from a vague assortment of gastrointestinal symptoms. At turns serious, comedic, analytical, and confessional, Doctor offers an unflinching look at what it means to be a physician today. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Doctor

Andrew Bomback

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