The Bad Mother’s Revenge is an anti-parenting book for all parents.  It’s especially for frazzled mothers with demanding children.  It tells the truth of how parents really feel about their children.  How we love our children dearly but will sell them on e-bay if we don’t get any peace and quiet.  That it’s OK to make horrendous, unforgivable mistakes like putting them in that evil concentration camp otherwise known as day-care or giving them chocolate Freddo-frogs if they eat their cauliflower and broccoli.

It is a series of eclectic anecdotes, incidents, observations and short stories based on my three children and family life in general.  The Bad Mother’s Revenge is NOT A Parents Guide to the Perfect Child.  It’s a very politically incorrect look at how families pull apart in times of crisis, how breastfeeding really sucks and bottle is best – dry, white and drunk in a quiet child-free zone.  It’s based on my personal observations from Pregnant Idealism to Teenage Hormones and how I traumatized them by explaining about the Birds and the Bees and turned them into potential serial killers.  It’s about how most parenting books are Weapons of Mass Deception.  About what REALLY goes on behind closed doors that the W.O.M.D. doesn’t tell you. 

I think the unthinkable, speak the unspeakable and write the unwriteable about what most parents wouldn’t admit even to themselves.  That it’s OK to intensely dislike your children occasionally.  That more women suffer from varying degrees of post natal depression than you realise and why DOES the medical profession blame post-natally-depressed-unsmiling mothers for the anti-social behaviour of their children??

I de-stress by sending my children to their bedrooms, telling them it’s OK to be bored, then I switch on TV, open a box of chocolates and pour myself a glass of Chardonnay Therapy.  It’s ok to think that children are irritating parasites who invade our uterus and proceed to pillage and plunder the rest of our lives.  And how we love and adore them for those very same reasons.

My household in no way resembled my ideal family, which was based on Ma and Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie.  It took me many years to realise that Mary and Laura Ingalls were paid actresses reading from a script and NOT real people.

All throughout my Bad Mother history, my main purpose has been to reach out to other mothers and yes, fathers too, that there’s nothing wrong with feeling some depression after you have a baby.  That it’s very hard work with very little respite and help.  It’s most important to know that your children will develop normally whether you breast or bottle feed.  That disposable nappies are not evil and most importantly that it’s pretty standard to have a disorganised, untidy household. 

It’s about driving your children to school in your pyjamas because you couldn’t be bothered getting out of bed till the last minute and giving them Hungry Jack’s for dinner three times in a row because you hate the thought of cooking yet another dinner that gets tossed in the bin.

It’s about forgiving yourself for not being the best parent in the world.  Realising that your children are going to be badly behaved, they will get in trouble with the law at least once before they leave home and that above all else, it’s not your fault. 

You don’t need to rigidly micromanage your children’s lives.  It’s more cost effective to just let them play in the streets with other children.  But above all give yourself some space and time to grow and develop along with your children.

I don’t claim to have all the answers; I’m not dishing out advice here.  I just facilitate a nice, warm, safe environment for my children to grow up to be lawyers or bank robbers.  Well, same thing really, only bank robbers have more community respect.

Laugh with your children at the funny things they do.  They are children and they are going to make mistakes.  They can’t get it right the first time, revel in the quirky little adventures you go through with them because one day you will wake up and find an empty house because they are all off continuing the circle of life.