This is the most recent book that Gabor Maté has written in collaboration with his son Daniel Maté. I have found it to be very interesting as it unfolds uncomfortable truths about the society that we are currently living in.
I have decided to approach my book reviews a bit differently as in taking more creative photos and exploring book photography at a higher level.
I might not say something new when I state that today’s society is toxic. We have normalized things like exposing your private life on social media and adapting it in order to gain likes, we have put phones in hands of children as a way of escaping the burdens of parenthood, we are lonelier than ever yet we cling to the illusion that the apps are filled with options from which we can pick in an arrogant way. Love relationships are lacking real intimacy as often people have to tell the other to put the damn phone away and come back to the real life. Absurd! Suicide rates have gone rocket high when it comes to teenagers and communication and meaningful dialogue have become rare because a lot of people do not know how to engage in a meaningful interaction beyond the shallow social media model they have imitated for so long.
This is not a comfortable reading. If you are a mother or father reading this will show you how you contributed to your child’s misery and explain their struggle in life. If you are an adult you will see how the way your parents related to you emotionally (or not) brought you in your current misery, be it financial, emotional, spiritual. Will you be the same for your children? A parent that they will need to heal from in therapy because of how your parents failed to raise you?
WE NEED A DIFFERENT SOCIETY. This is the core message of this book. We need a society with principles that put parenthood and raising a child as the top priority, where authenticity is more valuable than the fancy masks we are taught to wear. We need a society where self-awareness and emotional intelligence are core ideas taught in schools. We need a compassionate inquiry ( a special methodology developed by Gabor) in order to check with ourselves when we are crossing our own boundaries and saying yes when in fact we want to say no. If nothing changes I agree with Gabor that we will continue to see a very high rise in mental illness and suicide rates in the upcoming years and more adults that lack the capacity to form relationships and build a family.
