Prosecco parenting quickly loses its fizz for George as baby tears and breast feeding become sobering, sleep deprived substitutes for distant memories of a bacchanalian youth.
Work hard and play harder is the default mantra for those inhabiting the intoxicating media bubble but this glamorous lifestyle appears to float away from George as the innocent yet relentless demands of new born Pip create an energy sapping fatigue that leaves sleep as her only guilty pleasure.
As a newly single mother she bemoans her paternal incompetence but is reassured by the yummy mummy mafia that her nappyless projectile vomiting child can be forgiven so long as she adheres to the aspirational lifestyle of all millennials; a vegan diet with a young Einstein approach to education.
Lauren Sams style of writing could at times be mistaken for autobiographical musings as she paints an all too realistic picture of the ambition quashing domestic strife induced by the perverse joys of motherhood. Yet in attempting to decipher the chaos these acute observations will bring a smile to all who have been confronted by child rearing challenges that ultimately rely on the light of love and hope outshining the loneliness of the dark nights.
Meredith is the alpha female whose mental and physical engine appears to run on a low octane cocktail of alcohol and plant food. Yet this innocuous fuel drives a risk taking entrepreneur whose unpredictable behaviour is the unlikely facilitator of George’s potential climb back up the career ladder.
This is a feminist parable of our times told through the clenched teeth of an author struggling to reconcile female ambition in a male dominated world. Humour and pathos permeate the narrative and the unravelling of relationships ultimately reveals hidden secrets that turn the pre-conceived assumptions about the work life dynamic on its head. A must read for all mothers whose dream of a return to normality appears tantalisingly out of reach.
Crazy Busy Guilty by Lauren Sams (Published by Legend Press. Price £8.99). Get the book at Amazon.
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