I got this book at the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book sale last month as something to browse in the event of watching football games. I have not, in fact, had the opportunity to watch many football games, but I am finding that the shorter, snippet-sized books are easier to focus on (that is, they do not require much focus) while my family room is bisected by increasingly porous plastic sheeting (coming up on three weeks and maybe going into four or five).
So: This book is a collection of famous paintings from the classical and Renaissance with parenting advice text on them. Kind of like the classic are memes you see on the Internet these days. Amusing in spots, but I’m past most of the parenting advice these days. To be honest, I didn’t get a whole lot that I remember even though I was the primary caregiver and urchin squire from the time the oldest was toddling. Maybe it’s a woman-to-woman thing, some social thing where the advice giver is trying to assert higher status over a peer by offering the advice which is sometimes subtly damning and sometimes is often judgmental.
It probably doesn’t help that I read this on Saturday night, and on Saturday one gets Powerline’s The Week in Pictures and Sarah Hoyt’s weekly meme post.
But this book is one of those small gift books that you give on small gifting occasions. Collections of cartoons, poetry, and now printed memes. One has to suspect this is the final form of the little gift book, and perhaps one that won’t be around for long. This was a library book which was in circulation in the library for under two years. I think that might underline my point, but I really don’t know how long things stay in circulation these days.
