Child Versus Parent: Some Chapters on the Irrepressible Conflict in the Home

Wise, Stephen S. (Stephen Samuel), 1874-1949Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0

Word count: 149K words
Chapters: 15

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Child Versus Parent: Some Chapters on the Irrepressible Conflict in the HomeAuthor: Wise, Stephen S. (Stephen Samuel), 1874-1949,Language: English, Class: HQ: Social sciences: The family, Marriage, Sex and Gender, Release Date: Apr 24, 2010

Editor's review

This book is a collection of essays by Stephen S. Wise, an early twentieth-century American rabbi and social activist, on generational conflict within the family, falling under the sociology category of family and marriage. Using “irrepressible conflict” as its thread, the author discusses the tensions between parents and children over beliefs, authority, and the need to grow, and though brief in length, it is dense in argument. Its value lies not in offering modern parenting techniques but in presenting the educational anxieties and ethical debates of urban middle-class families a century ago; it can be read as historical material on changing family ideas and also offers parallels to similar difficulties in parent-child communication today. The prose carries the persuasive cadence of a lecture, and the chapters stand independently, making it suitable for reading in segments during a commute or before bed. Those seeking concrete parenting solutions may find the discussion principled rather than practical, but those willing to treat it as a historical mirror for observing how “generation gap” discourse was constructed will find it illuminating. Readers are advised to note passages that resonate with their own experience as they read and then discuss them with family members for best effect.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Social science readers interested in the history of family education and intergenerational relations
People working in parent-child communication or family counseling who want to add a historical perspective
Adult readers who enjoy short essays and can accept the old-fashioned argumentative English style
Family members who want to discuss intergenerational topics with elders or adolescents

Not a good fit for

Parents urgently seeking modern parenting methods or step-by-step manuals they can apply directly
Readers hoping for systematic empirical research data and contemporary case analysis
Chinese readers who struggle with English and are unwilling to use辅助 tools
Casual readers expecting light stories or novelistic narrative

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and first chapter to grasp the author’s basic position on “conflict,” then jump to chapters of interest.
After each chapter, jot down in two or three sentences the points that correspond to current family experience for easy review.
Read alongside other books on the history of family education or parent-child communication to avoid a single perspective.
If English is difficult, first use a dictionary to get the general idea, then return to close-read key passages.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What is this book mainly about?

It offers essay-style discussion of the difficult-to-eliminate conflicts of belief and authority between parents and children in the family, an early work in family social science that focuses on intergenerational tension rather than specific parenting techniques.

Are the views in the book suitable for direct application to today’s families?

Not directly. It was written in the early twentieth century, when social conditions and parenting ideas were very different, so it is better used as a historical reference to help readers reflect on today’s intergenerational communication than as an operational guide.

Can I read it if my English is not good?

The original is in old-fashioned English essay style with long sentences. Readers with basic English can use a dictionary or bilingual tools to grasp the general meaning first, then close-read chapters of interest; if reading English is entirely inconvenient, it is not very suitable.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Wise, Stephen S. (Stephen Samuel), 1874-1949 Author · American · 1874–1949

Stephen S. Wise (1874–1949) was an American Reform rabbi, the founder of the Free Synagogue, and an important leader of the Zionist movement. One work by him is held in this collection, entitled Child Versus Parent: Some Chapters on the Irrepressible Conflict in the Home. As the title suggests, the book discusses the unavoidable conflicts between children and parents within the family, placing it in the field of family education and parent-child relations. Public information on the specific contents and writing style of this work is limited, so its argumentative approach and prose characteristics cannot be described in detail. Given Wise's background as a rabbi and social activist, he long engaged with questions of ethics, faith, and family life, and this work likely continues his reflections on personal growth and family order. The book can serve as a reference for understanding early twentieth-century American views on parent-child education and offers a clue to the domestic concerns within Wise's thought beyond religion and politics.