We Never Had Any Trouble Before: First Aid for Parents of Teenagers
Paine
1975
Submitter: I found this 40 year old parenting advice book languishing on the shelf at my local public library. This is such an important topic, but you need to have current information about this. 1975 is just too old!
Holly: The section on hitchhiking (below) seems ridiculous. Do kids today even think about “seeing America” by hitchhiking from one end to the other? I doubt it. Sure, we need to tell kids that hitchhiking is not a good idea, but this makes it sound almost like the parents are overreacting and it’s not such a bad thing as long as kids are aware of the risks. I like the open dialogue method, but I wonder what else the author suggests compromising on. Was this how kids were raised in the 70s? Mary?
Mary: I will say that evils of hitchhiking were a common theme in most of our “safety” discussions at school. I am sure I saw more than one filmstrip on this topic in my youth. I like to think of parenting books as a quest for the Holy Grail. I think it is cruel to suggest parents can find answers to the insanity of parenting teens. We posted this back in the early days of ALB and I never got to see any interior pages or interior shots. It looks like Roger never wrote any more books besides this one. I like to think he was probably killed by a teenager or an angry parent wanting their money back for the cost of the book. On a side note: Roger looks like Robert Redford’s body double for the movie Jeremiah Johnson. (God, I am old.)
Awful Library Books 