Your Children are Boring by Tom James – Book Review
Your Children are Boring by Tom James – Book Review
Your Children are Boring
: or How Modern Parents Ruin Everything
Author – Tom James
Pages – 100
Released – 6th February 2020
ISBN-13 – 978-1712629970
Format – ebook, paperback, audio
Rating – 3 Stars
I received a free copy of this book.
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Synopsis
Are you sick of a society that seems obsessed with children? Do you find modern parents insufferable?
Your Children Are Boring is a uniquely humorous look at our culture’s obsession with children, a world where virtually every advert has a squawking child in it, where pubs are full of wailing infants, and where every other Facebook post is tagged #ProudDad.
Why do parents themselves behave like infants? Why having a child doesn’t make you less selfish, why it’s extremely unlikely that your child is in fact, ‘special’, and why modern parenting is ruining everything, not least the kids themselves.
All the answers lie within, and it’s your duty to read it.
Yes, Your Children Are Boring will make you laugh, but it’s much more than that. Once consumed you must take its teachings into the world and fix society. Or something. Oh and if you put ‘Dad’ or ‘Mum’ in your social media bios, this book is aimed at you.
Review by Stacey
I like a giggle, I like books that I can see myself in and have a laugh at the way others see me. So when I was asked to review ‘Your Children are Boring’ and told it was a humorous look at parenthood and raising children I agreed, I mean I am the mother of three sons.
The book starts strongly with the first chapter being about parenthood and about not everyone who is good is a parent, including a list of bad people who were parents, such as some country leaders and murders, and then a list of celebrities who are lovely and childfree.
Though the second chapter was what really caught my eye and had me nodding in agreement, even as a parent. Kids in pubs who sit giving you their glare face and their parents sitting waiting for you to acknowledge their child rather than telling them to turn around and stop annoying people. Or kids in places like this whose parents seem to think that it is the equivalent of a playground and let them run about whilst they ignore them playing on their phones. We’ve all encountered these parents and yes they annoy the hell out of me.
Unfortunately, the book then becomes one big moan from someone without children and the things they think define parents, including messy houses (apparently you can’t have a tidy house and children), you lose your spatial awareness as a parent (This is more about politeness as a whole, as plenty of non-parent do this), oh and we’re boring and big kids (The biggest kids I know are two child-free men in their 40s. Both have numerous retro items and attend comic cons around the world). What I’m saying is these things are not just what happens when you have children, they are a big part of society today.
Whilst I think some of the content could be funny, the delivery wasn’t. It was just full-pages of text. It needs some breaks in the text. It needs some illustrations and the quotes from people needs to be more visible not lost in the text. There are a few examples of what Tom James is trying to make us understand from what he’s seen or overheard but there needs to be more of them and again separated from the big ball of text.
The book didn’t offend me as a parent in any shape or form, I just wanted something I could laugh along and I didn’t get that from this book, I’m more disappointed as I was looking forward to it making me chuckle. There are plenty of things some parents do that are annoying such as not taking responsibility for their own child’s behaviour – Ever been stood at the supermarket checkout whilst the parent in front is telling their child the cashier will tell them off if they don’t start behaving rather than deal with their child’s tantrum themselves? These types of situations when written amusingly make people giggle, even other parents.
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Tom James grew up in Essex, his parents were working class Londoners who owned a small shop. After leaving his local comprehensive at 16 he worked in the City of London, aimlessly drinking and clubbing, and after a good few years of that he quit his job.
In 1990, during the first Gulf War he found himself sat on a beach in Tel Aviv (having been asked to leave the kibbutz he was staying at for ‘not working’). As he read a tatty copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson he had an epiphany.
Tom decided he would turn his life around, or at least change its course, and attempt to be a writer. He trained as a journalist in the 90s and has spent the last 15 or so years working in a variety of roles as a digital content expert in London. However, his actual writing took a back seat.
More recently though, he had a series of creative forays including writing, producing and presenting a successful comedy podcast, involved in a surprisingly successful comedy cookery book called Fifty Shades of Gravy: The Cookbook: Rude recipes for dirty dinner parties, and some sporadic outings of prose on Medium and PublicHouse Magazine.
His new book, Your Children Are Boring: How Modern Parents Ruin Everything, was completed in late 2019 and delves into society’s obsession with children and parenting.
He lives in Hertfordshire with two cats, and is a godfather to two of his friends’ children.
