How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute

As a mom of four and a beloved parenting writer at The New York Times, KJ Dell’Antonia found herself asking the question that plagues most modern parents at some point in our lives: How can we change our family life so that it is full of the joy we’d always hoped for? In her optimistic, solution-packed book, How to Be a Happier Parent, Ms. Dell’Antonia draws on interviews and research, including her own, to offer not just an answer to that question (it’s not all our fault), but ideas parents can use to shift their family lives away from the stress and towards the joy we hoped we’d find.

In all the writing and reporting Ms. Dell’Antonia has done on families over the years, one topic keeps coming up again and again: parents crave a greater sense of happiness in their daily lives. Drawing from the latest research and interviews with families, she discovers that it’s possible to do more by doing less, and make our family life a refuge and pleasure, rather than another stress point in a hectic day. She focuses on nine common problem spots that cause parents the most grief, explores why they are hard, and offers small, doable, sometimes surprising steps you can take to make them better. Whether it’s getting everyone out the door on time in the morning or making sure chores and homework get done without another battle, How to Be a Happier Parent shows that having a family isn’t just about raising great kids and churning them out at destination: success. It’s about experiencing joy — real joy, the kind you look back on, look forward to, and live for — along the way.

Ms. Dell’Antonia is a writer and regular contributor to The New York Times, where she wrote and edited the Motherlode blog from 2011 to 2016 and was a contributing writer to the Well Family section from 2016-2017. Prior to this, she was one of Slate’s XX Factor bloggers and a contributor to Slate, where she covered parenting and a broad range of subjects, from legal issues to pop culture. Ms. Dell’Antonia is a 1994 graduate of The University of Chicago Law School, and a former New York City prosecutor.