Emily Hourican’s motivation for writing this book was simple: She’d had enough and didn’t want to be told how she SHOULD bring up her kids anymore

With three children, aged 2, 6, and 9, Emily spent ten years wondering why her life with her family wasn’t anything like the pretty fantasies she saw around her—on TV, in magazines, in parenting books. Had she missed the point? Missed the boat? Messed up? And who was going to pay the price?

Emily soon started to wise up to the prettily-packaged ideals of perfection that mothers are drip-fed on a daily basis—a rose-tinted concoction of Cath Kidston aprons, glowing Agas and fresh baked buns—that none of us really has the ability to live up to.

She says ‘At last, I started to figure out that the fantasies were the problem, not me. I believe the worst thing we can do to mothers is tell them what they should be doing. Instead we should cheer them up, reassure them and make them laugh while they figure it out for themselves.’

How to (Really) Be a Mother is a refreshing antidote to all those lecturing, prescriptive books telling us how to raise our children. It challenges the endless stream of idealised images around motherhood—the soft-focus fantasy version that makes us feel inadequate.

Part memoir, part rant, part laugh-out-loud. Read it and say goodbye to guilt for good.

How to (Really) be a Mother is published by Gill Books on Friday 4 October 2013, priced at €16.99.

For further information please contact Teresa Daly, Communications Manager, 01 500 9521, 086 838 3559, tdaly@gill.ie.