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T A B L E++T A L K

Is your kindergarten teacher not doing his or her job? Get help and advice in Mothers.

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R E C E N T L Y

Chopra's little volume, with fonts that are delicately suggestive of Asia and dainty graphics (some readers may even recognize the peaceful avian family gracing the title pages as pheasant, partridge or grouse), actually proposes something quite radical. "If a critical mass of our children are raised to practice the Seven Spiritual Laws, our whole civilization will be transformed," he writes. "Every child needs as much mature love as you can give. What makes love mature -- and not just adult -- is the conscious spiritual intention behind it."

With so many grown-ups blubbering about their inner children, it is refreshing to see a self-help manual attempting to elicit the maturity of a parent. Because so much of Chopra's insight is based on ancient Vedic scriptures and yogic texts and practices, his suggestions have a heft that can bear the weight of contemplation in spite of his simplified language and retreading of familiar parenting book material. Most of the time. Here's a nice passage:

"A child who was taught from the age of three or four 'You are here for a reason' would face a very different future. Such a child would see the search for meaning in life as a natural thing, the spiritual equivalent of learning your ABCs. There would be no years of postponement, followed by desperate inner turmoil. 'Why am I here' doesn't have to be a fearsome existential question."

Here's something less inspiring of confidence: "Acceptance is essential because a lot of effort is wasted whenever you put up resistance. Defenselessness is tied to acceptance, in that having to defend your point of view creates conflict and chaos, which are both huge wastes of energy." One might argue that putting up resistance to certain realities, say physical abuse and social injustice, is not a waste of effort. Likewise, conflict and chaos seem to be playing a fairly important role in human evolution.

In contrast to Chopra's slim work stands Covey's encyclopedic, cross-referenced, plain-speakingly anecdotal, practicum manual. Make no mistake, the 7 Habits are on a mission: Improve family performance. And why? Because "history clearly affirms that family is the foundation of society. It is the building block of every nation. It is the headwaters of the stream of civilization. It is the glue by which everything is held together. And family itself is a principle built deeply into every person," Covey declaims.

With Covey, you have to read through the whiff of a possibly distasteful political sensibility. There's talk of television as the "open sewage pipe right into our home," there's a matter-of-fact ennobling of middle-class values and there's considerable Godspeak, which may disturb some readers. On the other hand, when you assemble the practical suggestions Covey has to offer to improve the shared life of the family, you may be surprised to find them useful. Under the corporate jargon, his idea of "improved family performance" is creating a family where relationships based on love and affection help children to become responsible, caring adults. Regularly make the time to be with your children, Covey suggests, and bring to these encounters what he terms "the four unique human gifts": self-awareness, conscience, imagination and independent will. Listen to them and respect them, he says. Here's how others have done it. Here's how you can do it. It works! Go for it!

The very point of the 7 Habits, and of Chopra's Spiritual Laws, is to help parents live up to the responsibility they assumed when they reproduced in the first place. An average parent is likely to come away from each book with at least a morsel or two of usable material. The parent desperate for help may emerge from these books with much more.
SALON | Dec. 1, 1997

Inda Schaenen is a regular contributor to Salon.