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 Neela Sakaria: Thank you for joining us. Please tell us a little bit about your background - do you have any previous experience writing?
Doug Peine: I've been a practicing attorney for twenty-four years now with a speciality in appellate law. Appeals are presented principally in written briefs, and so a substantial portion of my time as a lawyer over the years has been spent writing. I have also written several articles for legal and historical periodicals.
Neela: What inspired you to write It's Not That Complicated ?
DP: The immediate inspiration was Kmart:
One afternoon I spent a futile couple of hours trying to help a divorcing couple resolve their differences so they could avoid the cost, legal and emotional, of a divorce trial. But they were adamant and absolutely refused to let loose of their anger. On the way home that evening I hazarded one of those stops at Kmart we all must make for the sundry essentials of life. As I stood in the checkout line with my double A batteries and tube of toothpaste, I watched as a little girl in a shopping cart grabbed a candy bar from the shelf and refused to put it back.
And suddenly I had one of those epiphanies, one of those moments when we see connections between things we never noticed before. There in that little girl's body language, facial expressions, and insistence on irrationality I saw the very same patterns I'd seen with the adults in my conference room that afternoon.
And it dawned on me: It's not that complicated; parenting is not that complicated. Think of the times you yourself have been held hostage to one of those public, pitched battles between parent and child. Do you see an endless variety of parental mistakes? Or the same one or two over and over?
And why is it that unsophisticated parents who take the job seriously have just as much success raising happy, well-adjusted children as, say, child psychologists?
There has to be at work among those who parent well, not a specialized knowledge, but a fundamental common sense. It's that common sense my book seeks to rediscover.
Neela: What difficulties and challenges did you face in creating this book? How did you overcome them?
DP: As with any writing project I've ever worked on, there are moments in the midst when the ideas appear trite and the expression of them uninspired. At such times I simply push ahead, relying on a faith (sometimes little more than blind faith) that my original idea does have merit and that inspiration will return. And it usually does.
Neela: In the introduction of your book, you talk about happiness and your goal of equipping your son with the tools to maximize life's happy moments. Can you expand on this idea for our readers?
DP: Before writing about means, I thought it essential to consider ends: What kind of a kid was it I wanted to raise? Or stated more vividly: If I were to die tomorrow, how would I want my son to be equipped to live his life?
Considering the question in that light, I realized that I want him to be accomplished and successful, certainly, but only on the condition that he is also HAPPY. Forty years from now I really don't give a damn if he is President of the United States if he's miserable in the job. Success in life is not wealth or status. Success is as much happiness as possible over the long haul. This is an idea many of us struggle with. The inclination of our puritan ethic is to sometimes equate happiness with immorality, to assume that if we are content with our lives we are somehow failing in our responsibility to strive, strive, strive. The love I have for my son does a fine job of disabusing me of this notion insofar as it pains me to imagine him as an unhappy adult.And so one of my principal responsibilities to him is to make sure he understands not only that it is just fine to be happy but that in fact happiness should be the overarching goal of his life
Considering the question in that light, I realized that I want him to be accomplished and successful, certainly, but only on the condition that he is also HAPPY. Forty years from now I really don't give a damn if he is President of the United States if he's miserable in the job. Success in life is not wealth or status. Success is as much happiness as possible over the long haul.
This is an idea many of us struggle with. The inclination of our puritan ethic is to sometimes equate happiness with immorality, to assume that if we are content with our lives we are somehow failing in our responsibility to strive, strive, strive. The love I have for my son does a fine job of disabusing me of this notion insofar as it pains me to imagine him as an unhappy adult.
And so one of my principal responsibilities to him is to make sure he understands not only that it is just fine to be happy but that in fact happiness should be the overarching goal of his life.
Neela: What would you say are some of the most common mistakes that parents make when trying to discipline their children? What can they do instead?
DP: I have heard some parents say they try to avoid saying "No" to their children. This strategy bewilders me. There are fair and just and kind and good things in the world, and to these we say "Yes". And then there are unfair and unjust and unkind and bad things in the world, and when our child acts in accordance we these we say "No". There is no other way I see to teach the difference.
And when we say "No," we must enforce it immediately. This means that if the child offends again, we remove her from further opportunity. And we punish. If we do this early on and are consistent, not only will we have an obedient child, we will also have one who is happier, who knows her boundaries and can trust her parent's word.
Neela: What kind of research (official or unofficial) went into the creation of IT'S NOT THAT COMPLICATED? Did you take notes as you observed other parents and their children in line at the store, etc?DP: Mine is the book I couldn't find when I went looking for a parenting book. What I wanted was something short and sweet and confident and to the point. There are many wonderful parenting books out there, but most seem to be written to a certain standard length, whether or not that length is necessary for the author to express his or her ideas. And the fact is, new parents have never had less time in their lives to go wading through irrelevancies and redundancies in search of the nuggets.The intent of my book is to present the basic, common-sense principals of good parenting in an efficient and straightforward manner. My hope is that those who read the book will have their own instincts reaffirmed and so will be able to proceed with greater confidence in raising their kid.
Neela: What kind of response has your book gotten so far?
DP: It's early yet, but we've received two reviews, both quite positive. One gave the book five out of five stars.
Neela: What would you say to critics who might say that parents can't learn to raise children by reading a book?
DP: A book can't do it alone, but it can certainly help. How else are we to learn the wisdom of those who have gone before?
Neela: Are you working on any future projects?
DP: I'm beginning work on a book which takes a similar approach - i.e., It's Not That Complicated - to the principles of creating a happy and enduring marriage.
To learn more about It's Not That Complicated, visit www.hcibooks.com
Publisher: Health Communications Inc.
ISBN: 0757300049
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