Flea will tell you at One Good Thing: Here is a short excerpt from her detailed and interesting review:
…De Lench believes that girls are being turned off sports, not only because they are perceived as being unfeminine (which is true) but also because girls are”naturally inclined to play in a process-oriented, collective, inclusive, and supportive way emphasizing relationships and responsibilities.”Girls don’t want to win because they’re afraid of”hurting the other girl’s feelings, because losing makes people feel bad.”
She touts the U.S. women’s soccer team as being the best of all possible role models for young girls, and again I agree, but didn’t de Lench watch the documentary about the team where the players reminisced about how much they hated the Norwegian team and how badly they wanted to beat them? Doesn’t she remember Brandy Chastain’s infamous shirt removal at the end of the U.S/China China game at the Rosebowl? Does she think Chastain ripped off her shirt out of grievance for hurting China’s feelings? …
I found Home Team Advantage to be perhaps the top youth sports parenting book available and find it troubling that the original reviewer (a young mother”flea’ who runs a sex shop with hubby) would take the time to focus on the chapter about parenting girls.
The chapters every parent, coach and school administrator should focus on (and spread the word about) are;”Preventing Catastrophic Death and Injury”and the other;”Preventing Abuse.”The author, Brooke de Lench has done a remarkable amount of research (20 pages of back up bibliography). Both chapters where accurate, up to date and should win the book rave reviews. These are the most critical chapters of the book. As a Family Law attorney and mother of teen age athletes I will tell you she knows her material, both legal and medical. These are only two of the eighteen brilliant gifts she has for any parent starting a child out in sports or watching her last HS game.
Every feminist will appreciate the thread that runs strong in the book such as include more female voices (especially at the board of directors levels !) to add balance to the overly competitive nature of youth sports. I also found the chapter on the”Controversy Over Cutting”to be extremely well written and researched. Her idea for including more kids all the way up to the varsity years is brilliant.
A benefit to reading this book are the many voices and experts she includes; top physicians, attorneys, parenting authors, etc. -each are well respected in their fields and validates the writers ideas-including some of the current evolutionary biologists (yes-most boys and girls really different and the sooner a parent fully understands this the better). Some of the experts whom she adds quotes for add interesting ideas that serve to provoke ideas and thought. This book may only be controversial to those who read a paragraph here and there with out understanding the reasoning nor read the book cover to cover. This book is a gift for all sports mothers-embrace it.
I am posting your comment because I certainly think everything after the first paragraph is fair and reasonable for you to express, assuming you have no unstated personal or professional connection to the author or her publisher. Your comment reads a bit like a press release to me but perhaps I am unduly cynical and I apologize for that observation if you are simply a fan of the book, which it certainly is your right to be.
I do want to register an objection to your slam against Flea in the first paragraph. I don’t think the fact that Flea “runs a sex shop with hubby” is relevant to her review of the book at all. Flea was an athlete herself, as she describes in her review, and she is as entitled to her opinion as anyone. She is also an accomplished writer and book reviewer, as evidenced by her blog “Books Are Pretty” here: http://booksarepretty.blogspot.com/
In all fairness to open disclosure, I am representing a family of a child who has suffered a catastrophic spine injury. The family brought the book to my attention when it first came out. I have never met the author nor have connections to nor an interest in the publisher. I am simply stating that if”Flea”was an expert in one of the fields represented so brilliantly in the book-sports parenting included, perhaps then the review would have had some merit and validity. There was no slam at all just proving what her professional life is about (curious as to why you “read” it as a slam). Books such as Home Team Advantage which do so much for women and children need to be applauded. Especially ones that will help a culture that is in crisis.
Fair enough. Thanks for commenting and for clarifying.
Thanks for the shout out, Ann.
Ginna, among others seem to be taking this book review a bit personally, as their eagerness to discredit my opinion by “proving what my professional life is about.” The focus on the Honeysuckle Shop, (which has not taken up my full-time attention in over two years) while overlooking my lifetime as a semi-professional athlete as well as the mother of kids in sports, is exactly what Ginna is accusing me of doing. Furthermore, I quite frankly do not buy the explanation that she is only pointing out that I do not currently work in athletics and therefore have no place reviewing the book. I notice that I got no criticism when discussing the Organic cooking and crafting books I reviewed – nobody said that since I wasn’t an organic chef I had no place reviewing the books.
Most book reviewers do not work in the fields of the books they review, and the thought that they should is patently absurd. Which I’m sure Ginna knows full well, which leads me to conclude her bringing up the Honeysuckle Shop is, in reality, just another way of encouraging others not to listen to the whore. This, as you can imagine, only reinforces my opinion that I was correct about my feelings on the book.
Furthermore, I strongly object to Ginna’s language in connecting the Honeysuckle shop to my “focusing on the chapter of parenting girls.” If this was unintentional on her part, then fine, but if not, I strongly recommend she step back from whatever she seems to be insinuating.
The statements about the hardwiring about girls, as I responded to Ginna before when she copied and pasted the identical comment over at my blog, are sprinkled throughout the book and not contained only in one chapter. As someone who finds the eagerness to attribute “hardwiring” in the genders to be consistently detrimental to women, I found that part of the book troubling, not to mention her lauding of James Dobson, who is a flat-out dealbreaker for me.
As I said to my husband, the book was like a lovely Caesar salad that you keep finding bits of used kitty litter in. After awhile, you want to stop eating.
I found it weird that at her website, the book’s author Brook de Lench doesn’t really list any professional qualifications either. Her bio here (http://www.momsteam.com/alpha/services/experts/ ) says:
“…she has spent thousands of hours researching and writing about organized youth sports and its effects on children and adults…”
But, I don’t see how that qualifies her as an evolutionary psychologist!
Hello Ann,
I am raising five sports active kids and was intrigued enough by your posts to suggest Home Team Advantage as my book clubs (five fellow female attorneys) next read. Between us we have 21 children 6-19, who have been or for the most part are, in sports programs. We are each litigators in Pennsylvania.
I speak for the group: If you have children in sports you may actually really may want to read this book. We each agreed that the author is incredibly forward thinking in the way she has been able to synthesize information, data and research to provide us with the big picture, especially with the chapter on politics and how to improve the culture of youth sports. Her depth of information and breadth of knowledge quite frankly is pretty brilliant and damn gutsy. Most of us actually could not put the book down. When we gathered to discuss the book our immediate and unilateral vote was to get this lady to speak in the spring at our regional High School. Frankly, we each felt that the phrase”hardwiring”was used in pace of hormones and would have rather that she/ her editor would have used both to break it up, but it was minor for all the good the book will do.
By the way, she was very clear in the intro about who she is and is not– she never claims to be a psychologist but is obviously dialed into the sports mom community which we vote is more useful and more than qualifies her to write about her field. Thanks for the heads up on this one. Now we are on to a new read that de Lench mentions in her book: Why Gender Matters.
Well, if the book is useful to you, that’s fine. I thumbed through it, but didn’t find it nearly as enthralling as you did, and I’m with Flea on the gender essentialism stuff.
Basically the book gives mothers the inside scoop on how to keep their children safe while playing youth sports. It also tells us how to keep our sanity and how to break into the last old boy bastion of sports to improve the ultra-competitive culture. What’ there not to love about this? Anyone taking the time to hyper focus on one small aspect of this book, as the Flea has, when there are several important chapters, either a) has not been a parent b) has not been a sports parent very long c) has yet to see the scope of damage being done to children while in most sports programs. I read this book with my moms book group:three are law professors-two in full time practice. We found it to be immensely powerful and critical to how we will parent our athletic kids.
Lillian Leichter, Esq.
As I said previously, if you like the book, that’s fine. You are wrong about Flea, she is really smart and knows a lot about children and sports, but you are certainly free to have your own opinion about this book.