Alex Gladwin Blog

It's amazing how things can come into your life just as you need them, isn't it? For me recently, that thing was a book called Simple Happy Parenting, a book that has changed the way I think and now parent in more ways than one. 

On the front cover, the book promises to share the secret of less for calmer parents and happier kids and it begins with a really honest, completely relatable letter to the reader from the author - Mum of two Denaye Barahona who has a Ph.D in child development with a speciality in family wellness. She talks about how when she was pregnant she wanted to give her children the world (like most parents do) and that this to her meant more love, more protection, more toys, more opportunities - more, more, more, but how then this desire to give her children more left her feeling less.. Less energy, less joy, less calm - something I can totally relate to in my own parenting.

She goes on to write that she hopes that we, her readers find inspiration from her book and that we take away tools and bits of advice that are useful to us and leave anything that doesn't suit our families. She reassuringly says that we'll never fit any perfectly shaped box or any expert-defined parenting philosophy and it's obvious even before the first chapter has begun that this isn't going to be a book that makes you feel that you have to parent a certain way or else feel like you're not getting it right. This is a book written by a Mum, who understands that parents and children and families as a whole are all different and celebrates parents for being the best they can be, rather than striving for an unrealistic 'perfect'.