Shameless Parenting

Everything You Need to Raise Shame-Free, Confident Kids and Heal Your Shame Too!

By: Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers

Narrated by: Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers

Shameless Parenting is the 21st-century book parents have been asking for! It highlights the trickiest parts of each age (birth to 18) that tend to trigger shame, and guides them on how-to provide emotionally for their children while helping them understand the shame that is emerging for them. Shame is what makes us reactive as parents. It is the hardest part of parenting. It is from our own places of shame that we over-react, repeating patterns from our parents that we might otherwise have resisted, and finding ourselves stuck, not knowing what to do.

This book has your back! It allows you to feel prepared for each stage of your child’s emotional and sexual development before you get there, and it gives you everything you need before you are caught off guard, including sex ed when that times comes for your child. Now you can enjoy yourself, enjoy your child, heal your shame, and change the legacy. What a powerful gift to give yourself, your child, and your whole family!

©2021 Tina Schermer Sellers, PhD (P)2021 Tina Schermer Sellers, PhD

Review from a non-parent

First, I am not a parent. I got this this book in hopes that it might give me insight into my own past and feelings of shame, and how I might come to view myself and human sexuality in a more healthy way. It did just that.

The greatest testament to Dr. Shermer Seller's perspective on sexuality is that it is something that has served her well in her own life and in the raising of her own children. She did not come from a family in which sexuality was viewed as shameful, and she did not grow up feeling sexual shame. To many, the fact that this is possible will be a revelation in itself.

Dr. Schermer Sellers rightly points out the many harms caused to a generation of children by evangelical purity culture--something I have personal experience with. However, it is interesting to me that both evangelical purity culture and progressives like Dr. Schermer Sellers view "the media" and "the culture" as the enemy. Not only that, but they also both tend to see the other side as indistinguishable from this enemy, or as aiding and abetting it. Surely, lumping evangelicals together with rape culture, the media, the excesses of capitalism, and objectification of women is highly uncharitable and unfair reading of the motives of these individuals. And any "good evangelical kid" who grew up in purity culture (myself included) knows that all of this stuff is bad. Pointing out what is wrong with purity culture doesn't require that we ignore the areas of agreement or demonize people's intentions.

On gender identity and transgender issues... You would think that millennia of humanity getting these issues wrong (as I assume the author believes we have) might instill one with some sense of humility that perhaps we still haven’t yet arrived at a perfect understanding of sexuality and identity. Yet Dr. Schermer Sellers writes with what reads like absolute clarity and certainty when she discusses these issues, referring readers to various books and "transgender experts who can help guide you and your child..." Statements like this are extremely patronizing when you understand how far this stuff is from a settled science. I can't help but feel as though we're doomed to continue creating new sets of absolutist dogmas and deference to unquestionable authorities every time that we throw off the old ones.

It makes it more difficult for the reader to trust the veracity of anything the author tells us when she makes passing statements like "gender isn’t a binary", and then proceeds to belie this claim by using gendered language throughout the book. "Gender" is not clearly defined here (or anywhere, for that matter!), and it would be worth noting that many people do not see "gender" as a valid category. Moreover, gender is not "assigned at birth". Rather, the SEX of the child is observed and documented at birth. Making statements like these may appease those within the author's circle, but it will not help her important message spread far and wide.

Instead of reifying notions of gender by telling our children that they should alter their body when they don't fit the gender stereotype, perhaps we should be challenging our notions of gender and encouraging our children to accept and love their bodies exactly the way that they are. There is nothing wrong with them. To me, this inability to accept our bodies and our biological sex and distinguish this from our personalities and interests is just another manifestation of sexual shame.

Finally, I find it unfortunate that a book about shamelessness finds no fault worth mentioning in the doctrines of modern day antiracism which are leading many young children to identify deeply with immutable characteristics and to feel a sense of shame and otherness due to socially constructed categories of "race." We should not be encouraging children to see power dynamics between races, but empowering them to view themselves as the equals that they are. The more we continue to reify the category of race in the 21st century, and the more that we cultivate a sense of insecurity in children, the more resentment and division we will foster in the future.

While I feel the need to push back on some of these points, I loved the book and Dr. Tina's heart. I think that she has an extremely important and timely message that can help parents and non-parents alike.

This should be required reading for ALL PARENTS!💕

This is an excellent resource for anyone who has kids or who works with kids. It is concise, clear, encouraging and practical.

It also helps adults work through their own journey around sexuality and shame in a way the is gentle and kind.