A lovely little book on ghastly parenting by animals that are not us. Gifted this to a family member who just had her first baby and is your normal, apprehensive, anxious, stressed-out, impossibly-in-love first-time parent1. I loved Priscilla Witte’s witty2 illustrations and what I think is the overall message here, which I wrote to her: Try your best and enjoy the ride. All shall be well 🥰
Let’s celebrate the not-so-great and “Wish it had gone better!” Embrace the mediocre family times you share together.
The book has a few notes towards the end. Love a good reminder that Nature is rather hardcore. Two things I thought of as I read short descriptions of why the featured animals do what they do are (1) a minimization of energy/waste and (2) good 'ol natural selection: they just want to make sure they continue to make more of themselves.
Cuckoos are still terrible and I might dislike them more than Canadian Geese, the bros of the bird world. But all this aside, it’s a fact that there is no more worse mom or parent than this nightmare of a human being:
*shudder*