Only children.

Only Children follows two middle-class Manhattan couples through the first four years of parenthood, from the births of their first babies to those children's fourth birthdays. The parents are baby boomers who are intensely anxious about raising their infants the right way. They follow parenting manuals and magazine advice with great seriousness.

The novel shows that how these parents behave owes as much to their own childhoods as to any of the advice they read. As those histories come out, the book blends affection with satire to portray the joys and absurdities of child-rearing in an era when such concerns were often comically exaggerated.