Scary parenting
One of my Christmas gifts was the book Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the age of bad parenting advice by James Lileks. Lileks is the author of another humor gem, The Gallery of Regretable Food, which highlights the scary foods in vogue in the 1940s and 50s.

A fair amount of the humor relies on Lileks' commentary on the images from advertisements and parenting books, so it's a little hard to blog. But I'll share some of his general observations from the beginning of a chapter that is truly ROFL-worthy.

Here's an example:
"If there's one thing the old books agree upon, it's the importance of leaving young children to bake in the sun, preferably until they have attained the hue of pot roast. It's the most striking example of how things have changed in recent years....Now, of course, parents regard the sun as a giant flaming ball of death, and will not let children stand near the window unless they are covered in gunk whose SP rating is equivalent to roofing tar."

I've only made it through a few chapters so far. It's frankly a rather exhausting book to read. Laughing yourself teary and breathless every few pages makes each chapter quite a work out.