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‘How eskimos keep their babies warm,’ ‘The Night Swimmer,’ ‘In Our Prime’

Short Takes

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January 08, 2012|By Kate Tuttle

HOW ESKIMOS KEEP THEIR BABIES WARM AND OTHER ADVENTURES IN PARENTING: (From Argentina to Tanzania and Everywhere in Between)

By Mei-Ling Hopgood

Algonquin, 304 pp., paperback, $15.95

As an American expatriate in Buenos Aires, Mei-Ling Hopgood noticed right away how late Argentine babies stayed up - or, if they weren’t exactly up, were asleep in someone’s arms or on two restaurant chairs pushed together while their parents enjoyed traditional late dinners out. After having her own daughter in 2007, she wondered whose child-rearing advice to follow: the schedule-driven American paradigm or the child-doting, late-night socializing ethos in Argentina. Pondering such cultural differences led her on a quest to chronicle and understand different ways of bringing up baby. Along the way, Hopgood examines Kenyan mothers wearing sling-wrapped infants, Chinese moms whose toddlers wear split-bottom trousers to avoid diapering, and Mayan families whose smallest members work alongside their parents.

Hopgood, an adopted American who has reconnected with her biological family in Taiwan and is raising her daughters in a bilingual, multicultural household, writes from a place of respectful, cosmopolitan curiosity - a refreshing break from the often judgmental tone of parenting books and blogs. If there’s any overarching lesson here, it’s that “there are many ways to be a good parent in the world.’’ Readers might pick up another, unstated theme: Many other cultures seem to provide more nurturing in infancy (they believe one must “let babies be babies’’) and higher expectations (of work, independent play, self-regulation) in childhood. But Hopgood doesn’t pursue this or any other idea particularly rigorously. Another weakness: her repeated reference to fathers who “babysit’’ their children. Still, the book is breezy and entertaining, and Hopgood is charmingly self-deprecating about her own mothering of the formidable Sofia, who emerges as a sassy character in her own right.

THE NIGHT SWIMMER

By Matt Bondurant

Scribner, 274 pp., $25

Courtesy of a contest staged by a liquor company, American couple Fred and Elly Bulkington win a pub in a coastal Irish village. At first, the glorious cliffs and ocean views, not to mention the musical Irish still spoken by many locals, seem to Elly the ingredients of a fantastic adventure. An open-water swimmer, she literally dives in, training for a dangerous swim between the tiny nearby island and its storm-ravaged lighthouse. But in this eerie novel by Matt Bondurant, his third, it’s not long before everything about Fred and Elly’s life turns dark and stormy.