Two parenting books with the same message: The proverbial village is a must

That proverbial village - you know, the one everyone says is essential to raise a child - might be the other sling-wearing, Bugaboo-pushing mommies on your block.

Or it might be the whole world.

Two new books by Philly-connected authors - albeit in very different ways - upend the notion that parenting is meant to be a solo gig. The Mommy Group: Freaking Out, Finding Friends, and Surviving the Happiest Time of Our Lives by Elizabeth Isadora Gold follows a group of women in a flush section of Brooklyn who weather miscarriages, births, sleep training, and the sea change that motherhood brings to one's sense of self.

Adoption Beyond Borders by Haverford psychology professor Rebecca J. Compton argues cogently for the benefits of international adoption, citing studies that show children adopted across national lines generally thrive - physically, cognitively, and culturally - in their new homes.

Though Gold's book is a memoir, with intimate details of an imploding marriage (not her own), a bout of postpartum anxiety (yes, hers), and the nipple blisters that result from zealous use of a breast pump, Compton's takes an academic approach to a charged topic, weaving in occasional sections that chronicle her own adoption journey.

Both books underscore an idea still gaining traction in the United States: that parenting, wherever and however it is practiced, must be a collective enterprise with the well-being of children at its center.

Gold, who grew up in Philadelphia and whose father, Larry Gold, is a well-known musician and arranger, responded to a 2010 note on a parenting Listserv in Park Slope, where she now lives: "The purpose of [this] pregnancy circle is to offer support and friendship to each other as we enter into this exciting time!" Gold's first child was due that October.

Soon, their group of seven - including a social worker, a school administrator, a graphic designer, and a lawyer specializing in family law - was meeting every few weeks for lively discussion of varicose veins, C-section statistics, and postpartum sex. And when one woman's marriage ended abruptly, the members of the mommy group found themselves in deeper, more vulnerable territory.

The group became a nexus of support as two members, including the author, struggled with postpartum mental illness; another's child was diagnosed with gross motor delays. They talked candidly about the pros and cons of returning to work and the need to recalibrate relationships with their spouses.

"Practically every woman I knew was having the same experience in her own mothers' group, this experience of people who had saved each other's asses," Gold, 41, said in an interview. "I felt like that was a missing piece of the parenting literature."

Gold got the share-all green light from members of her mommy group (though she did change names and some details); she also visited other venues - a ride-along with a lactation consultant, a postpartum "boot camp" session in San Jose, a parenting education class in a mainly poor, mostly Latino section of Los Angeles.

What she learned bolstered her belief that parents need more support than they generally get. "If we were having a hard time in Park Slope, Brooklyn, legendary for being ground zero of precious parenting, what does it mean for the rest of the people in this country?" Gold asked.

She's not the first to call for changes in public policy: paid parental leave, more sensitive postpartum care, insurance coverage for doulas and lactation consultants. She also envisions a network of mommy groups, perhaps facilitated by hospitals or birth centers.

As a new mother, "I was shocked by my need for support," Gold said. "I hope the ultimate message of the book is that community is really essential."

For Compton, the village raising a child may be far bigger than a couple of Brooklyn blocks. Her own son, now 7, was born in Kazakhstan; during the yearlong adoption process, Compton remained in the country, visiting him in the orphanage nearly every day.

Like Gold, she found her own parenthood experience missing from literature on the subject. She also felt startled to encounter critics who claimed that people who adopt abroad are "buying babies," and that their adopted children suffer cognitively and culturally.

Compton, trained in psychology and neuroscience, uses numbers rather than anecdotes or interviews to make her case that international adoption confers more benefit than harm.

She examined numerous studies showing that, although children adopted internationally tend to have developmental delays at the time of adoption, they catch up physically and cognitively after a few years in their new homes. The earlier they are adopted - ideally, before age 2 - the more quickly they rebound.

She also examined a hot-button of international adoption - the belief that adoptees suffer cultural identity crises in adolescence or early adulthood. Again, the studies refuted that idea, although they did show that adoptive parents play an important role in supporting their children's ethnic and cultural self-understanding.

What matters most, Compton concludes, are relationships with adults from the child's birth culture (or race, in the case of transracial domestic adoption) who can talk frankly about navigating racism and ethnic identity.

"The answer is for adoptive families to be aware of those issues and help their kids find diverse connections," she said in an interview.

Compton also addresses the accusation that international adoption boils down to rich Westerners robbing less-developed countries of their children. A year in Kazakhstan, where domestic adoption is considered shameful and secret, and where parentless children languish in orphanages, muddied that simplistic idea. In some countries, dire poverty leads parents to relinquish their children, and lack of medical care for children with disabilities means such kids are unlikely to find an adoptive home in their native countries.

"In the ideal world, kids would remain in their birth families," Compton says. But as advocates work to solve problems such as global poverty, unemployment, and lack of reproductive health care, "it's unwise to close off international adoption as an option for the kids who exist now."

To whom do such children belong? Compton would answer the question this way: They belong to the place, and the people, who can promise them love, nurturing, and fulfillment of their potential as human beings. "I'm not sure national borders make sense to me," she says, "in terms of the circle that should be drawn around a kid."