This week Sandy chats with Dr Susie O’Brien in the confessional, a delightful journalist and columnist with a PhD in Education. For the last 19 years she has written about parenting and social issues for the Herald Sun and other News Ltd papers, and she appears weekly on Channel Seven’s Sunrise. She and her partner have five (yes, 5!) kids between them. Susie says they’re the Brady Bunch, without Alice to cook dinner every night!
Susie chats about her fabulous book The Secret of Half-Arsed Parenting: Raising kids with half the guilt. The Secret of Half-arsed Parenting is a funny and practical antidote to the extreme stress of modern parenting. It pokes fun at the unrealistic goals and expectations thrust on parents today. Parents don’t need any more thrusting – it’s how we got into this mess in the first place.
The Secret of Half-arsed Parenting offers a way to raise kids with less pressure, less guilt, less stress and fewer cupcakes baked at midnight. It’s not about doing a bad job. It’s about recognising that parents don’t have to be perfect. What’s wrong with toasted sandwiches for dinner? Kids sharing rooms and bathrooms? Saying “no” once in a while?
The key is to know your limits and set the bar low enough so you succeed. As Susie sees it, if your friends judge you for not baking cupcakes from scratch or wearing slippers to school pick-up, get new friends (and slippers that look like shoes).
As Susie says: “As a Half-arsed Parent, I don’t care about ‘retaining my sensuality’ and ‘finding my femininity’. I care about retaining my sanity and finding my daughter’s mouthguard that I paid $80 for.”
You can follow Susie here:
https://www.instagram.com/susieobrien_hs
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/susie-obrien
https://twitter.com/susieob?lang=en
You can buy Susie’s book here:
https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-secret-of-half-arsed-parenting-susie-o-brien/book/9781760525736.html
The book is also available on Audible.
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