Weird Parenting Wins summary

If you think back to your childhood, you might remember how frustrating mealtimes were. What a waste of time! Who wants to be stuck at the table when you could be dashing around the house in your underwear?

For parents, this scenario can be a nightmare. Kids need to eat for all the obvious health reasons. But more importantly, no parent wants an irritable sugar-depleted child on their hands.

Much like any other child, the author had a vivid imagination. She believed a lion hid beneath her bed ready to pounce the moment she drifted off to sleep.

Many children have similar fears, but though at times it might seem impossible to calm them, there are many ways to hush a child’s overactive imagination.

The author has a brother, Josh. He's six years younger than her. When Josh was a baby, the author was fond of holding him, feeding him, and of course, playing with him. However, Josh’s presence also triggered a darker side to the author’s character.

There’s nothing unusual about that of course. It’s quite normal for sibling rivalry to spiral into unkindness.

Even if you think of yourself as generally even-tempered, kids will probably have brought you to your breaking point nonetheless. Sometimes you simply can’t do anything other than explode.

But such outbursts are nothing to be embarrassed about. Sometimes a valve just needs to be released.

Perhaps one of the most tiresome elements to being a parent is feeling like you’re constantly on duty, always ready to entertain. But no one can keep that up. We all need an occasional break from childminding.

The author’s own salvation came in the form of plastic condiment sachets of spicy and soy sauce from Asian takeaways. She – like many others– doesn’t actually use them. So she ended up with a glut.

Most young kids will prattle away at a thousand miles an hour. They’ll talk at you while you’re driving or during evening meals. The most tenacious, like Sasha, won’t even let a closed bathroom door get in the way. But for all that nattering, children aren’t good at talking about their feelings.

One way you can get them to open up about their emotions is to role-play with them. 

We all know giving birth can be anything from wonderous to torturous, and that each experience is unique in its own way.

As for the author, she had to have an episiotomy. That’s a surgical procedure required when more space is needed for the baby’s head during labor. During this procedure, an incision is made in the perineal area.