My wife Karen and I raised three children; a boy and two girls. Although I’ve threatened my daughters with writing this book for a long time, particularly during their teenage years, I only did so recently. Blessed with a life full of funny anecdotes, and a family with a wonderful sense of humour, I wanted to capture these for others to laugh at. Believe me, I do not think my family is more special than anyone else’s, but perhaps readers will enjoy them and remember similar incidents of their own.
The book is centred on my daughters’ teenage years, and they weren’t all filled with laughter. There was a lot of worry and stress too, and I’ve tried to capture these moments honestly. Life moves too quickly, like an accelerating treadmill, as you struggle with increasing demands of work, children and aging parents. Each stage changes quickly into the next, and before you get totally comfortable with one, you have new issues to handle. We were the first generation to deal with cell phones, which added new challenges in the parenting process.
Karen and I made mistakes. We know that, but we learned some lessons along the way which can hopefully benefit those readers still dealing with raising children. I should add that the stories are absolutely true and actually happened to us. There was no need to fabricate any anecdotes for these books. As they say, truth is often stranger than fiction.
However, the names and places have been changed, in order to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent. I had to either do this or enter a witness protection program so my daughters couldn’t find me.
I hope you enjoy the stories.
Andrew McKinney