Parents (2-year)

I have a subscription to four different parenting and baby magazines: Parents, Parenting, Babytalk, and American Baby. This is my favorite. I seems to be the most informative and the topics are presented in Parents long before Parenting every gets around to it. For example, Parents had a indepth article on new discoveries in miscarriages and the following month parenting ran a similar article, but was not as informative and obviously was a steal from Parents. There are also great contest. There are also topics that parents can send in comments about and actually get paid for them if published. All I can say is that this is the only magazine I need and will not be renewing the others.

Parents magazine is a very good publication about raising kids to be happy, healthy adults. It offers some good advice about the task of parenthood, illustrating the hard work and rewards that go hand in hand if parents perform their role in the best possible manner.

I like this magazine as a whole, but there are a few things that potential readers need to know about before they pick up a copy to read. First of all, the articles in Parents magazine deal mostly with younger children, below twelve years of age. You won't find much of value in this magazine if you have teenagers. It is intended more for families with youngsters.

Another thing about this magazine that makes it less practical than it otherwise would be is the suggestions for family activities. The ideas presented here are all pretty good, but the problem is that the majority of them involve outlays of cash and/or time that are unrealistic for most families. I can agree, for example, that adding a game room would make a nice addition to one's house and would add tremendously to a family's time spent together. But how many among us can afford a home addition? Parents magazine talks about activities and enhancements like this in an unrealistic way, making them seem much simpler and easier to implement than they really are.

Aside from distractions like that, however, Parents is a very good magazine to read. It's one of the longest magazines you can buy, with 200 to 300 pages per issue. Add to that the low subscription price, a few pages of coupons, and the generally sound parental advice and you have all the makings of a good magazine for young families.

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This is primarily my wife's subscription, so this is mostly her input she has me read a couple features each month. There are so many things she finds useful about the magazine I can tell you she spends several hours reading each issue and regularly cuts out articles to save in our "parenting" file or to put on the fridge. Here are just a few of the great regular features of each monthly issue:

"As They Grow", pointers and insights related to a particular subject, one each for eight different age groups (from pregnancy to pre-teen years)

"can you help?", suggestions from readers about how to handle a common problem, such as the dentist or cutting your child's nails

Suggestions to keep your child busy in the house

An Emergency Guide pull-out for dealing with various situations like electrical shock, bee stings, etc.

Product recalls, usually with pictures

Product testing and reviews (similar to Consumer Reports)

Why not 5 stars? There are a couple annoying features in the magazine, such as "out of the mouths of babes" and some of the suggestions for children's activities around the house sound easier to do than they really are (sort of like what people say about Martha Stewart). It can also be a bit of a downer to read the stories about serious illnesses some children have had and how their families cope not always what you're in the mood for when you're thinking about your own healthy child. But overall, this magazine is the best one out there for parents AND they are branching out we recently started receiving Baby Parents. It's tough to know everything about raising your child so outside sources of information are key. Parents magazine is a great resource that has been well worth the small subscription price.

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I subscribed to this after my daughter was around 1 year and, being a stay at home mom, thought I might be able to sneak in a magazine article here and there. What better magazine to subscribe to than one focused on the raising of my darling baby girl? What a mistake! There are 2 types of material in this magazine; alarmist and inane. In fairness, there is occasionally a slightly interesting tidbit that doesn't cause me to immediately throw the thing down in disgust.

I don't fully fault the magazine for all of this as I've noticed that all periodicals seem to be catering to the lowest common denominator as of late. But honestly, the average article seems to assume that most parents are either complete morons or possibly 12 years old. Maybe it's because I'm 33 instead of 23, but I find the majority of the advice to be either extremely obvious or downright ridiculous. I do not need to be told to spend time with my child and I find it unhelpful to make parents think their child is Autistic because their one year old doesn't always look up from their toys when their name is called.

Then there's the household tips. In every issue, there seems to be tons of helpful tips to streamline the management of your home. These are the sort of silly "thirteen different ways to use a laundry basket" that some people may find interesting, but I do not. If I need a shelf, I install a shelf rather than hanging a laundry basket from some hooks. Honestly I feel like I've lost IQ points after reading this magazine. Sometimes I think it would have been more educational to watch The View and that would have been free.

I give the magazine 2 stars because there is occasionally something interesting in it. I have also seen worse. But if you are an actual adult, have some common sense and want to limit the ridiculous decor in your home to macaroni art created by your child, skip this magazine.

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I like this magazine mostly for the activities and the developmental articles. I agree with some of the other reviews that say that it's "age-biased," but you have to remember that when they publish a magazine, they are targeting a specific audience. 18-34 IS their target audience. If you don't fit in that range, then buy another magazine! I don't buy Cosmo girl because, duh, I'm not a teen-ager anymore. I think this magazine has fun ideas and helpful information about baby products (such as consumer reports and recall information on strollers, carseats, toys, etc). And contrary to other reviews, they DO feature children of all different races, they DO have articles on children who are physically/mentally challenged, and they DO have articles on the benefits of breastfeeding. I don't expect their material to cater to my exact lifestyle (I haven't seen an article about vegan babies yet and I'd like to see something about cloth diapering) but I think they do a good job of trying to include all different kinds of families and parenting styles.

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