Best two reviews:
1) Chicago Sun-Times - Ron Howard's Parenthood is a delicate balancing act between comedy and truth, a movie that contains a lot of laughter and yet is more concerned with character than punch lines. (Rating: 100) Read Full Review >
2) Los Angeles Times - Ron Howard reaches real maturity here, as he pulls together the script's tendency to skitter between sociology and sitcom, making it into one perceptive, delicious whole. [2 Aug 1989, p.1] (Rating: 90) Read Full Review >

Worst two reviews:
15) The Globe and Mail (Toronto) - Parenthood is a charming, amusing piece of work. It doesn't say anything new - Howard clings as tightly to tradition as Norman Rockwell - but it says the old things with enough wit and eloquence to keep them going for another generation. [2 Aug 1989, p.C7] (Rating: 75) Read Full Review >
16) USA Today - The borderline Parenthood is either an iffy comedy with lots of compensations, or a good comedy with more irritating flaws than most movies manage to survive. Whichever, the "feel good'' infantry of summer-film escapists will probably love it. [2 Aug 1989, p.5D] (Rating: 50) Read Full Review >