I picked this up thinking it would be useful next time I teach family communication - and it will be. James argues that personality and character are determined much more by environment than by genes, and cites seemingly valid research to back it up. He also points out that environmental variations can be subtle - for instance, it's not possible for first-born and later-born children to have the same experience of family life.

They F*** You Up may also be helpful in the gender & communication class, since students are always telling me that they and their siblings were treated exactly alike in their families, regardless of gender. ( )

Fantastic, absolute classic and a must-read for anyone struggling with their past. ( )

I have such a catalogue of complaints about this book that it's hard to know where to start. It's not a great book to read as an expectant parent, as it's main gist, and the point that it labours to prove time and again, is that the first three years of a child's life are absolutely crucial to their development. They set the blueprint for almost everything that is to come, and hardwire in place patterns of behaviour that are incredibly hard to change in later life, however much one may want to. This is fairly consistent with what a lot of other recent research on child development seems to suggest, although many other researchers would perhaps not take this argument as far as James does. He argues that things long since thought to have a large genetic component, such as Schizophrenia, can be traced back to childhood treatment. He also, rather controversially, dares to suggest that other things that are widely regarded have a strong component of "nature" are actually more about "nurture" - like homosexuality and autism. I'm not sure that I agree with that, but that's not my main problem with the book.
On the one hand, as I say, he makes I strong case for the vital importance of the first three years, and has lots of case studies to draw on of people that have subsequently gone on to have very dysfunctional lives, after some early childhood bad parenting. But for those of us that would be good parents, there is very little description for what this bad parenting looks like. Just vague phrases about "uninvolved" styles, or "unempathetic". Also, words like that are usually followed by the word "mothering" rather than "parenting", after he explains early on that it is still the mothers that do the majority of early childcare. That may be so, but constantly using the word "mother" when firmly laying the blame at someone's doorstep is hardly helpful - it smacks of demonising a group of people that are embattled enough as it is. So, this book is useless if you are reading it in the hope of avoiding some of the pitfalls of bad parenting. It certainly doesn't offer any alternative models of what good parenting looks like either. And it is equally unhelpful when it comes to advising anyone whose first three years were less than optimal how to deal with that in later life. There is some advice about not blaming the parents and some wishy washy stuff about how to let go of anger and move on, but it feels ill thought out and unconvincing.
The real agenda of this book seems to be disproving the "nature" lobby that would put the blame of a lot of bad behaviour on the part of certain people down to "bad genes" rather than parenting, or social deprivation or societal norms or whatever. I thought that was a rather outdated mood of thought, but towards the end of the book he presents some rather chilling circumstantial evidence of how right wing thinkers in America and the UK use this line of thought to justify social inequality. However, if this book is meant as a answer to them, it feels muddled, as much of it is presented more like a self-help book (although, as I said, not a very helpful one). Having said that, it does have some interesting things to say about how parental behaviour differs towards siblings, and why that explains differences in sibling behaviour more than any genetic explanation (he seems to have a particular bee in his bonnet about those famous twin studies that look at similarities between identical twins, especially those separated at birth), and also, rather worryingly, how trauma can be passed on to children from parents unintentionally - so for example a traumatic event in a parent's life like the death of a close family member, can be transmitted to a young child. So there you are - even events entirely beyond your control can turn you into a bad mother. But what can you do about it, that's my question??? ( )

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Acknowledgments
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Our Genes
2. Scripting Our Family Drama
3. Scripting Our Conscience, Aged Three to Six
4. Scripting Our Relationship Patterns In Our First Three Years
5. Scripting Our Sense of Self In Our First Six Months
6. Be Your Own Scriptwriter
Conclusion
Appendix 1: The Dubiousness of the Minnesota Twins Reared-Apart Study
Appendix 2: Twin Studies – A Warning
Appendix 3: Estimates of the Environality of Human Psychology from Twin Studies
Notes and References
Index ( )