The Endless Tryout
Reclaiming Childhood from Relentless Competition
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The Endless Tryout
Narrated by:
Jay Caspian Kang
Pre-order Now for €17.98
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Narrated by:
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Jay Caspian Kang
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By:
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Jay Caspian Kang
Every year, the rat race begins earlier for American kids. Parents hustle ever-younger—and increasingly anxious—children from one extracurricular activity to another. The financial cost of soccer practice, Kumon, or ballet lessons keeps rising. But the apparent social costs of not building a differentiated résumé for an eight-year-old seem to rise even faster. Otherwise, what hopes are there for a spot at the “right” educational institution later in life? Parents white-knuckle their way through a hierarchical game that seemingly cannot be won. Running this gauntlet, the middleclass will jettison their stated ideals and commitments in the blink of an eye, if it means their kids have a fractionally better shot with the admissions office. Who built this Hunger Games-style arena of personal development? And whose interests does it serve? Jay Caspian Kang, for one, has had enough.
In his distinctively thoughtful, lacerating style, Kang takes aim at this culture of competition, optimization, and hypocrisy, pointing the finger with as much ferocity at himself as at the rest of us. He writes with startling candor about his precocious eight-year-old daughter, Frankie, and their adventures together in the baroque world of youth soccer. He skewers the affected and overwrought milieu, in which he and his family find themselves as card-carrying members of the so-called “coastal elite,” having relocated from Brooklyn to Berkeley. And he confronts the intractable dilemma of “screen time,” and its attendant alienation, with sangfroid and a spirit of pragmatism.
At once an accusation and a confession, The Endless Tryout promises both catharsis and salvation for parents at the end of their rope. Kang captures the cruel hybrid of panic and calculation that gives American parenting its uniquely stressed-out emotional texture. His book is a desperately creative attempt to imagine a better—no less high-achieving but more realistic, honorable, and humane—world for parents and children alike, as well as a love letter to his own kids. For Frankie and her little brother, Anzan, he would do or sacrifice anything—including his sanity and reputation.
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Reviews
“I️ can't decide whether one should read this book as a how-to manual or a cautionary tale. Either way, it's thoughtful, funny and thorough and I️ can't put it down.” —Liana Finck, author of How to Baby: A No-Advice-Given Guide to Motherhood, with Drawings
“Part manifesto, part cry for help, The Endless Tryout is a sly yet delightfully forthright dissection of the preoccupations and anxieties of what Kang calls the panicking class, of its aspirational parents and their desperate, often ludicrous attempts to get ahead and to raise their kids right, in these desperate, ludicrous times. Kang, as ever, manages to be both affable and lacerating, as he investigates his own choices—as a soccer dad, a math dad, a neighborhood scold—and dissects his (and our) hypocrisy and folly. We’ve clearly all lost our minds. Kang’s here to tell us to snap out of it.” —Nick Paumgarten, author of The Intangibles: Friendship, Fatherhood, and the Love of the Game
“A frank, funny dissection of parenting in the age of optimization. In holding up a mirror to himself, Kang shows us how toxic competition has turned parenting into a grueling sport where everyone loses (except the owners of youth soccer leagues). I came away from this book with enough of a perspective shift that I almost briefly considered asking my child, 'What do you want to do?'” —Bess Kalb, New York Times bestselling author Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (As Told to Me) Story
“Moms and dads: Take a break from supervising math homework to join Jay Caspian Kang as he turns his unsparing gaze on the deranged parenting anxieties of the striving class—his own included. Don't be afraid to see your own behavior dissected here; the prognosis is ultimately hopeful that fellow parents might transcend today's extracurricular arms race.” —Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World
“The Endless Tryout is ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ for twenty-first-century American parenting. Funny, smart, and insightful, this book is a howl of frustration at the commodification of kids’ time, and a revealing history of why so many kids are pushed into privatized competition. With the rigor of a journalist and the heart of a soccer dad, Kang has delivered a rousing call to action to rebuild our communities around what we actually want for our kids.” —Charlotte Alter, author of The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America
“Part manifesto, part cry for help, The Endless Tryout is a sly yet delightfully forthright dissection of the preoccupations and anxieties of what Kang calls the panicking class, of its aspirational parents and their desperate, often ludicrous attempts to get ahead and to raise their kids right, in these desperate, ludicrous times. Kang, as ever, manages to be both affable and lacerating, as he investigates his own choices—as a soccer dad, a math dad, a neighborhood scold—and dissects his (and our) hypocrisy and folly. We’ve clearly all lost our minds. Kang’s here to tell us to snap out of it.” —Nick Paumgarten, author of The Intangibles: Friendship, Fatherhood, and the Love of the Game
“A frank, funny dissection of parenting in the age of optimization. In holding up a mirror to himself, Kang shows us how toxic competition has turned parenting into a grueling sport where everyone loses (except the owners of youth soccer leagues). I came away from this book with enough of a perspective shift that I almost briefly considered asking my child, 'What do you want to do?'” —Bess Kalb, New York Times bestselling author Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (As Told to Me) Story
“Moms and dads: Take a break from supervising math homework to join Jay Caspian Kang as he turns his unsparing gaze on the deranged parenting anxieties of the striving class—his own included. Don't be afraid to see your own behavior dissected here; the prognosis is ultimately hopeful that fellow parents might transcend today's extracurricular arms race.” —Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World
“The Endless Tryout is ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ for twenty-first-century American parenting. Funny, smart, and insightful, this book is a howl of frustration at the commodification of kids’ time, and a revealing history of why so many kids are pushed into privatized competition. With the rigor of a journalist and the heart of a soccer dad, Kang has delivered a rousing call to action to rebuild our communities around what we actually want for our kids.” —Charlotte Alter, author of The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America
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