Every parent has a style. And every parent has probably judged another parent with a different style. It’s helpful if parents of the same child have similar styles, and Dennis and I definitely didn’t. 😏

Dennis grew up in Trinidad, the oldest of four, and raised by his mom and grandmother after his parents split up when he was about 10. He always tells me that his father was very strict. He worked in radio and then as a diplomat, and he taught his children that you always eat with your knife and fork, you look with your eyes and not with your hands, and you greet everyone when you enter a home. Dennis respected his father, and he had ridiculously good manners, always said please and thank you, and taught our daughter (as well as some of the neighborhood kids) the same manners that were instilled in him as a child.

While he lived with his grandmother, she taught English so it was important that they be well-spoken. She would make Dennis read aloud to her while she was working in the kitchen, and if he stopped reading, she would throw something, whatever she could get her hand on quickly, usually a shoe. But the kicker was that she made him stand in front of the television, so if he ducked or moved, he would get in trouble for making her break the television. Needless to say, he just kept reading. Good thing Corinne never had issues with reading…and that TVs are a bit more delicate and expensive to replace nowadays. 🤣

As Dennis reached his teenage years, he terrorized his younger brothers. He loved to tell me about the time his brothers got into his comic book collection, which he had told them not to touch. To teach them a lesson, he says he trapped them in the bathroom, nailed the door shut, and then went out with his friends for the afternoon. He didn’t tell me how much trouble he got in when he returned.

Dennis’s parenting style, I assume as a result of the way he was raised, was “do as I say, not as I do” because oldest children are typically very respectful of authority. So for Dennis, it didn’t matter why he told Corinne to do something or that he wouldn’t do the same. He expected her to listen because he was her father.

I grew up as the middle child between an older sister and a younger brother. I kept to myself a lot, spending a lot of time in my room reading, feeling a little like a black sheep. I know I got in trouble. I remember having to kneel in the corner, getting spanked, but I really don’t remember why. Probably fighting with my sister. When we were young, we shared a room, so we clashed a lot more than with my brother, who is four years younger than I am (six younger than my sister).

We were raised more with the mentality of practice what you preach. If you’re going to tell your kid to keep their room clean or to rinse their dishes before they put them in the sink or to limit how much time they spend watching television, you should be willing to do the same. I remember talking to a therapist once about our differing parenting styles, and she asked me what’s wrong with just telling Corinne what to do and expecting her to do it. We are, after all, her parents, and she is a child. My response was that there’s nothing wrong with it. She should do as she’s told because we tell her to do it, but I also feel that we should be willing to model the behavior that we expect from her.

I just finished a new book that deals with a clash in parenting styles and a tragic result. It was a maybe for me, but I think a lot of people would probably enjoy it.

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐
3 Stars for For All She Knows by Jamie Beck

394 pages
Publisher: Montlake
Publication Date: March 30, 2021
I received a complimentary copy of this title from the author.

Publisher’s Description

Grace first met Mimi when she blew into their sons’ toddler playgroup like a warm bay breeze that loosened Grace’s tight spaces. Despite differing approaches to life and parenting, the fast friends raised their kids together while cementing a sisterlike bond that neither believed could be broken. But when a string of ill-fated decisions results in a teen party with a tragic outcome for Grace’s son, the friendship is ripped apart and an already-splintered community explodes.

Accusations are leveled, litigation ensues, and the people of Potomac Point take sides, all of which threatens Mimi’s business and her current custody agreement. Her sole salvation is a young cop who just might be her second chance at love. That fact only antagonizes Grace, whose marriage is crumbling beneath the weight of blame and the echo of past mistakes.

With their lives unraveling, the former friends stand to lose everything they love unless they learn to forgive—both themselves and each other.

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Main Characters:

• Grace Phillips – a part-time piano teacher and mother to Carter and Kim. Her best friend is Mimi Gilette, and Grace has often been told she would regret being Mimi’s friend. Grace is more reserved and has trouble putting herself out there in public forums. She is currently pushing for some school funds to be used to upgrade the science labs.
• Sam Phillips – Grace’s husband, an accountant. He’s super supportive of Grace and their children and is the type of husband Grace is always telling Mimi she needs.
• Carter Phillips – Grace and Sam’s high school age son, an academic. He is experiencing some bullying at school because of a debate over his mother’s stance on the school budget.
• Kim Phillips – Grace and Sam’s 10-year-old daughter. She is most focused on her first sleepover birthday party.
• Mimi Gilette – a single mom who owns her own hair salon. She has a reputation for being too flamboyant, but she and Grace have been best friends since their sons were small. Mimi has garnered a lot of support for the school budget to fund an upgrade to the football field, but people in the town generally don’t think highly of her.
• Dirk Gilette – Mimi’s ex-husband, a mostly absent father.
• Rowan Gilette – Mimi and Dirk’s high school age son, an athlete. He would be dependent on athletic scholarships for college.

I wanted to like this book, especially since the author sent it to me herself as a giveaway. I have never read Jamie Beck, but she seems to have a great following, and there are plenty of rave reviews about this title and the series as a whole. This is the third and final book in Beck’s Potomac Point series, and all of the books can be read as stand-alone novels. I read the descriptions of the other two books, and I didn’t recognize the characters, so it feels like the only tie-in is where everyone lives—the small town of Potomac Point in Maryland.

When the story begins, Grace and Sam are at a Shock Trauma Center ER near Baltimore, waiting for some test results on their son Carter after a tragic accident that took place in Mimi’s home. The story is told in alternating chapters narrated by Grace and Mimi, beginning six days before the accident.

Despite being best friends and supporting each other’s point of view, Grace and Mimi are on opposite sides of a school budget debate, which is impacting their sons. Grace wants school funds put toward the science labs, which is where Carter thrives, and Mimi wants the funds to be designated for the football field because she feels that is Rowan’s one chance at a college scholarship, and she doesn’t have the financial means that Grace and Sam have.

The theme here, however, is not about the budget debate or even really what is happening with the conflicts at school. The biggest theme in this book is what happens to friendships when vastly differing parenting styles result in a tragic accident. Grace’s style is over-protective because her father and sister both died as a result of alcohol. Mimi’s style is more relaxed, allowing her son and his friends to drink casually in her home, thinking that it will take away the appeal of sneaking around to drink behind your parents’ backs.

It is said that tragedy will either bring people closer together or tear them apart, and we see both throughout this book. This is a journey of understanding and healing and acknowledgement of responsibility, more for the adults in the story than for the kids involved. This event impacts the community as a whole, and the community needs to heal as a result. Grace and Mimi have been friends since their sons were toddlers, so it did not surprise me that they stayed friends even as their kids got older and Mimi’s relaxed style came to the forefront. Friends grow together, and shared experiences bond them, so as their kids got older, Grace and Mimi were able to see past their parenting differences. That’s what I liked about the book, but it’s really about all that I liked.

***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

What is surprising, however, is both Grace’s and Mimi’s lack of awareness of the other’s point of view after the accident. Grace basically becomes blind to any point of view except her own. Her “perfect” marriage is suddenly not so perfect because she and Sam disagree over the path they should take. And she doesn’t have her best friend to vent to because that’s who she blames.

I think what bothered me the most about Grace is how preachy she sounds, so that kind of set the tone for me to dislike her. Her sister’s alcoholism and death comes up in her narrative constantly, and it literally drives every decision she makes about her own kids. By the time I was about 50 pages into the book, I already felt like it was too much, and by the end of the book, there are 59 mentions of Margot (once about every six pages).

Grace’s dialog also felt unrealistic to me. At one point, she’s talking to Kim, and she tells her “It’s okay to learn to wait for things, to understand age appropriateness, and to keep your brain from becoming addicted to screen stimulation.” Kim is 10. Who talks like that to a 10-year-old? Grace gives off a vibe like she thinks she’s better than everyone else, that her life and family are perfect, and that really turned me off.

In regard to Mimi, she also experienced loss as a child and ended up being raised by her uncle who pushed “punishing” Christianity on her. She claims to be a woman of deep faith, but her actions don’t bear that out. She is a lenient mom who actually encourages underage drinking at home expecting it to reduce the allure. When Carter is hurt in her home because Rowan had a party while she was out on a date, she took zero responsibility and tried to convince Grace that Rowan was taking responsibility and had learned his lesson. How do you not take any responsibility for your minor child’s actions?

Understanding that you can’t be with your kids 24/7 and they have to learn to take responsibility themselves, you are still a parent and their irresponsibility as a result of your lax parenting is your responsibility. (See, I’m judging other parents again.) And I know that she and Grace have been best friends for a long time, but when your friend’s child is seriously injured in your home, you shouldn’t be surprised when they get distant and need space. Somehow Mimi doesn’t get that, and keeps trying to push her way in, talking about how she helped raise Carter. (Grace says the same about Rowan.)

The story did wrap up nicely at the end. Everyone got their happy ending, but the main adult characters were just so unlikeable to me by the time I got to that point. It was just the same narrative over and over and over.

As I said, if you’re a fan of Jamie Beck and of this particular series, you’ll probably love this as much as some of the other reviewers I saw. For me, it was an ok read that I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend.

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