Are You Ready for Fairweather Parenting?
Right. Let's get something straight from the off.
This isn't another parenting blog where I'm going to tell you how to raise little angels who eat organic quinoa and never have meltdowns in Tesco.
This is for parents who are drowning in the daily chaos of actual children. The ones who sometimes serve cereal for dinner. Who've hidden in the bathroom for five minutes of peace. Who've bribed their kids with screen time just to get through a phone call.
Welcome to The Fairweather Parent. I'm glad you're here, even if you arrived with yesterday's breakfast on your shirt.
Who Am I?
I'm a writer. A parent of nine kids. Yes, nine. Two stepdaughters, plus seven more ranging from 20 months to teenagers. I've got an ex-wife, a lovely current wife, and a house that sounds like a zoo most days.
Currently living with a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 3-year-old tornado, and a toddler who thinks sleep is optional. Plus guinea pigs that squeak at dawn and a dog who eats so much crap I wonder if she has PICA.
I write for a living when I can find five minutes without someone needing a snack, a wee, or an existential crisis resolved.
In this house we have dealt with autism, ADHD, anxiety, and every other acronym you can think of. I've tried to be the perfect parent who brings homemade cupcakes and remembers non-uniform day.
And you know what, there have been times that we have failed spectacularly at all of it.
And that's exactly why this blog exists. To show everybody that it’s ok to fuck up as adults, and as parents. You’re not going to damage your kids because you cuss out a twat that cuts you up a roundabout or because you get mad when they ask you for eleventh time if they can have an ice cream while holding a half-eaten ice cream.
What This Blog Is About
This is about parenting in the trenches. The 6am wake-up calls and the midnight worry sessions. The tantrums in supermarkets and the moments when you question every decision you've ever made.
It's about picking your battles and surrendering when you need to. About admitting that sometimes a packet of crisps is breakfast and nobody died so it was a good day.
You'll find posts about:
Dealing with difficult behavior without losing your mind
Managing multiple kids without becoming a referee
Surviving school holidays and the PTA politics
Special needs parenting when you're barely keeping your head above water
The reality of blended families and complicated exes
Why good enough parenting is actually brilliant parenting
What This Blog Is NOT About
I won't tell you how to make Pinterest-worthy lunch boxes. I won't share recipes for organic, sugar-free, gluten-free anything that takes more than ten minutes to make.
You won't find perfect family photos here; forced images with matching outfits, clean faces, and the dull souless eyes of children who are more familiar with Stockholm Syndrome than they are anything that resembles a real childhood.
If you are one of these people who prance around shouting that parenting is all sunshine and gratitude journals, well … this isn’t going to be the site for you.
We are fairweather parents. We don't do perfect here.
We do real.
Why I Started This
Because I'm tired of parenting advice that assumes you have unlimited time, energy, and patience. I'm sick of blogs that make you feel worse about yourself because your kids aren't meditating by age five.
Most parenting advice is written by people who've forgotten what it's actually like to have small children hanging off you while you're trying to make dinner and help with homework and remember if you've fed the guinea pigs. Or those who have funds that remove them from understanding what real life is like for many people. Hell, even those who have grandparents or aunts and uncles who they can palm their little bundles of joy over to whenever they need a mental health break.
That’s not us. That’s not fairweather. We are in the trenches, balancing the books, deciding if we want to spend the last few quid in the bank on bread for packded lunches or a breakfast McMuffin to celebrate surviving another school run.
Hint: The kids can have crackers or an extra penguin, it will be fine.
Every day I wake up to chaos. Kids who've lost their school shoes, forgotten their homework, or decided they hate everything they loved yesterday. I deal with it in my muppet pajama bottoms and a shirt I can’t recall ever not wearing complete with coffee stains, while invariably running late for something.
And you know what? We're all fine. The kids are fine. We are healthy and we are happy because we don’t hold onto some false ideals in the vain hope of gaining social media’s approval.
My Parenting Philosophy
Kids are brilliant. I love my kids with all my heart and soul. BUT they're also complete dickheads a lot of the time. You know what, both things can be true, and that has absolutely no impact on your ability as a parent or the depth of love you have for your kids. It’s just the plain and simple truth. .
You don't need to be perfect to be a parent. You can’t be, and the more you try, the more your kids get forgotten in the name of your own vanity quest. Being the biggest or baddest bitch on the school run means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
You need to be present, consistent when it matters, and willing to admit when you've got it wrong.
Pick your battles. Some battles are worth fighting. Many aren't. Learning the difference will save your sanity, annd just maybe the more you allow yourself to lose the unimportant ones, the better your chance of success with the ones that really matter.
Your children won't remember if you brought homemade cookies to the school fair or if you pulled onto the double yellows and grabed a 30% off pack of chocolate button ones from the Aldi round the corner from the school.
What they will remember, is the fact that you were there.
Good parents have bad days. Great parents admit it and keep going.
How to Use This Blog
Start wherever you are. Drowning in laundry? There's a post for that. Dealing with a child who won't sleep? I've been there. Wondering if you're completely ruining your kids? You're not, but let's talk about it anyway.
Whether you’re a fairweather mummy or a fairweather daddy, it doesn’t matter. We have the content that captures everything you think you’re doing wrong, and shows you just how much you are winning at being a parent.
Read the comments. Leave some comments. Connect with others who are bailing out the same boat in a bid to make it to the other side of this period in one piece.
A Warning - Even if you’ve made it this far, it’s only fair
I’m going to swear. More than occasionally, and depending on where you’re from, sometimes it will make you blush. Not you Australia. I fucking love you’re language skills.
This site deal in brutal honesty, tackliing the harder or at least unspoken reality that is parenting. We won’t sugarcoat things or pretend everything is fine when it isn't.
If you're looking for gentle parenting advice wrapped in pastel colors, well, congrats on sticking with it this far, but maybe what lies beyond isn’t really for you. If you want someone to tell you that every parenting moment is precious, you'll be disappointed. There are plenty of precious ones, but waking up to a toddler pissing in your clean bedding because they were too comfy to go the toilet is not one of them.
For those of you still here, we offer you real talk from people who are currently living in and embracng the beautifu madness that is having children. We understand the chaos, and know what it's like to feel like you're failing daily. It’s time for the world to finally learn that loving your kids and finding them exhausting aren't mutually exclusive.
Let's Be Real Together
Parenting is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or has forgotten.
You're not alone in feeling overwhelmed, underprepared, and slightly unhinged most days. You're not the only one who's ever hidden in the kitchen eating chocolate while your children destroy the living room.
We're all just making it up as we go along. The difference is, being willing to admit it.
So grab a coffee, find a comfortable spot, and let's navigate this beautiful disaster together. Your kids might be driving you mental, but you're doing better than you think.
We promise.