Americans, by and large, have become connoisseurs of preparation. Newlyweds scour online public-school ratings to decide on the neighborhood where they'll raise their notional children. Tutoring programs offer to help students with the SATS, MCATs, or just about any other standardized test. Leisure activities'pickleball, baking'tend to encourage rigging oneself up with just the right gear, and plenty of different product-review sites will recommend the best-fitting sports bra or superior pie dish. Even at rest, there is something to do: Rings and watches track heart rates and sleep states and inform wearers of their 'daily readiness' first thing in the morning. This phenomenon is rampant in the great American sport of childbirth and child-rearing. As Amanda Hess, a New York Times critic at large and a savvy analyst of the online world, lays out in her spot-on and brutally funny new book, Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age, approximately no amount of online prep actually...
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