Richard Glover

Um, so we've got onto this real imperfect parenting jag, which is actually a good opportunity for me to mention a book that I'm reading right now.

I haven't finished it yet, but by Richard Glover.

Oh, I love Richard.

And it's called How to Ruin a Child.

Um, and by this stage my teenage daughter had completely taken over the group chat book and was openly just reading it.

[laughs]

So I started reading Richard Glover's book, How to Ruin a Child.

And you know how Richard, you know, who's a former colleague of ours, um, at the ABC, but, like, has this kind of brilliant capacity to absorb absurd detail and to write relatably about the stupid things that humans do.

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Author and broadcaster Richard Glover is back on Conversations today.

Richard Glover, I'm pleased to say, is a global expert on parenting, or more specifically on the parents, because he grew up with several of them and he's also had kids of his own.

But the truth is that when you have kids, it's a bit like getting a license to drive before you've ever sat at the wheel of a car, and so you look for books on parenting for advice.

Richard's been looking at these theories over the last century, and he's discovered that they are almost universally full of ridiculous, misbegotten, and occasionally cruel tidbits of advice, from toilet training weeks-old babies to sticky taping outer ears.

Well, Richard, this has been massively informative and such a joy, and thank you so much.

Well, you're doing it h- nearly however you're doing it, providing there's a lot of love available, there's no way, whatever the experts say, of ruining a child.

Richard Glover is the author of How to Ruin a Child: A Journey into the Alarming, Hilarious, and Ever-Changing Advice Given to Australian Parents.

...

I remember Richard Glover, um, the Australian writer, once wrote a really great column about everyone thinks their family's normal, that, like, their upbringing was normal, and then you tell someone else, and his example was everyone.

[laughs] You're like, "Yeah, and then, you know, Mum made us all get undressed in the, in the garage because she wouldn't have any outside clothes in the house."

Yeah.