There are many informative parenting books out there that offer support on how to raise well-balanced children and teenagers....these books are not any of them

Decades before I became a psychotherapist, I was a mother of three small children.   When my children were in primary school and I had time on my hands, myself and a couple of friends were drinking wine at my house and we thought it would be a laugh to call ourselves the “Bad Mother’s Club.”  We thought, under the influence of some Jacob’s Creek, that it would be an even better idea to call the local community newspaper and get our photo in the paper, which we did.  The following week while I was out, my then twelve year old daughter

took a phone call and said to me, that a radio station had rung me. 

“What radio station?” I asked

“Dunno!”

“What did they say?” I ASKED

“Can’t remember!”

“Did you get the number?” I begged

“No.”

So I rang a few radio stations in Western Australia, and told them what happened and was it them?  No they said, but 6PR said they loved the idea, so come on air and have a chat with us.  I did and that was so much fun.

Then I rang ABC720 Perth and the receptionist said, “send an email to Rosemary Greenham, Producer of Saturday Breakfast.  So I did, and I told her of how my children, especially my daughter was driving me potty and that if I stood on one more lego piece I would chuck the whole lot in the bin. 

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I also added the story of when I would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in a cold sweat because my then four year old daughter could not colour inside the lines.  I took her to the Parent Help Centre.  The counsellor told me I needed to calm my farm by the time she was of school age, otherwise I would be in for a very rocky time.  When my two boys arrived on the scene I could not wrap my head around the fact that boys just don’t do colouring in, and I solved the problem by colouring in for them and pinning it on the fridge under their names.  No-one was ever the wiser.  Then, after a few more wines with the girls, loose lips sink ships, I found out that all the other mothers did exactly the same thing.

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Rosemary rang me, luckily I answered.  She offered me a regular radio spot on Saturday Breakfast.  She had resonated with the sheer desperation we mothers feel, and we shared similar stories of the sane and insane consequences of motherhood.  This four year relationship on radio birthed two books, The Bad Mother’s Revenge (2006) and Death by Teenager (2009) both published by ABC Books, now Harper Collins Australia.

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Both books are available in ebook and kindle form from

Harper Collins Publishers Australia and Amazon