Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Became Parents

This was a book that I was immediately drawn to for several reasons.

a) The title

b) The author

The title, I am not going to lie, had me at it's tagline, or title. It's catchy, it leads assumptions and hopes about the intention of the book. "Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Became Parents."

I know the author, as you probably do, as the author of the "Five Love Languages". What people don't know is that he writes many books. This is one of them. On page 23, Chapman uses his story to shameless plug his book, the five love languages. Except for the fact that it was not a good transitional thought so it felt disjointed completely from the previous thought.

Today, at least, I am not super into this book. It was not what I had expected at all. I thought it would be more comical with fun stories and great pieces of advice. Maybe it is with this expectation that I was let down.

There are two kinds of book that you can assume it is by the title. While I assumed it was one, the comical one, there​is another kind which is for the new parent who may not have had their child yet. This book is definitely the latter.

I presume this would be a good light book for those, that are say, in a new parent class.

It had some good bits of advise for everyone though so don't think I don't like it at all. Some good pieces of advise like being able to “make it work” (who else hears Tim Gunn's voice every time?) with scheduling and what is important. Of course, well seasoned parents know this whether we practice it or not.

As I continue to read, my impression is slowly changing from the first. It doesn't start off with a bang so to speak but then you are left feeling like you are getting the inside of their parental journey, just a little. I believe the beginning chapters are more for new parents. And like I said, it really needs something more then beginning to start it off. This could be though, that I am three children in. So if you are a new parent, you can disregard that last statement and likely find it very useful.

I will say that I appreciate the quick read that this book is. I sat down during my son's soccer game, when he wasn't playing of course, to start reading this and it went by much faster than I anticipated. So anyone should be able to read this book.

The "talking it over" part, which has further questions, thoughts and details are great too whether you are a single parent or a married parent. Of course, if you are married or in a partnership,  you should talk about these questions with the partner or spouse in your life too.

In the sixth chapter, he goes into his love languages more in a healthy way of supporting what he is saying. This I appreciated because the first time he mentions it in the beginning of the book, it was done in such a way that I thought was not super well done, so it left a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth. This equalised it again.

I really think that this book would have been best done as two separate books with more drawn out ideals in the realms that he talks about. Keeping the first half for new parents and the second for seasoned parents. Or keep it all for new parents (and doing a separate book for seasoned parents).

The fact that I have heard most of what he is saying, plus the fact that there are really good things in this book (the latter half in my opinion), this will be the first time I give Gary Chapman lower than 4 or 5.

Via Bella gives this book ⛅⛅⛅ out of Five.

*I received this book from Moody Publishers in exchange for my review *