Liz Fraser - The Middle Years: When the kids grow up... and everything goes tits down

Theodora: I think you are amazing. Your writing has had such a positive impact on my view of family life and myself as a mother. I will always be grateful. Keep up the good work.

Nicola: You always hit the nail on the head!

Neil: Liz, oh how this strikes a chord! So refreshing and entertaining.

Andy: Absolutely brilliant, Liz. You tell it like it is, and never fail to uplift.

Nikki: Reading your books is like talking to a friend: you write with gut-wrenching honesty, bravery, compassion, and you connect totally with the reader. Your writing has truth, heart and strength, with loads of cheeky wit too. I can be tear-filled one minute, then laughing like a drain the next. Its just cracking.

Georgia: Brave and inspiring, Liz. Its made me cry!

Chrissie: Your book was great, so many moments where I nodded my head in agreement, and felt that, hey, Im not the only one who has moments where I feel like Im doing a terrible job! Im really looking forward to reading the next book!

Lu: Your books are great. Realistic, funny, and encourage us all to be a bit more tolerant with ourselves. I always recommend them to my friends!

Natasha: Always inspirational!

Jo: Im greedy to gobble up your next book!

Freddie: So glad it is not just my family that is like that. You make me feel so much better.

Anna: You hit the nail on the head and touch people in a light-hearted way and that sometimes can make a big difference to someones day. I know it did mine in the early days of parenthood and later when the rose-tinted specs of family life started to slip. Thank you!

Olga: Thanks for your generosity in sharing all you have learnt and also for your transparency and courage to show us the real you and the real us.

Sophie: Congrats on the brilliantly helpful, beautiful books!

Eve: Glad youve finished this new book! Ive loved your writing since your Yummy Mummy book days. (I loved them!) They helped me weather the early stages of being a mummy to a baby and toddler. Its the only book I managed to read since becoming a mum!

Sarah: Loved your first books and now in my mid-forties I need this one! You are very kindly helping me through this lark they call parenting. Thank you!

Jane: Have been waiting for a book like this to come along for ages. I read your Yummy Mummy book when my youngest was little and it really resonated with me: funny, honest and truthful and authentic, you are a writer I can really trust about parenting and all its ups and downs. Now my youngest is nearly eighteen and Im soon to be fifty, I cant wait to hear your take on this stage of life.

Liz Fraser is one of the UKs best-known writers and broadcasters on all aspects of modern family life.

Her books about the realities of being a parent smashed the parenting mould over a decade ago by finally allowing it to be funny, and accepting that we all get most of it wrong which is just as it should be.

Liz appears frequently on national TV and radio with much bigger hair than she has naturally, on a range of shows including This Morning, GoodMorningBritain, BBC Breakfast, Sky News, 5 News and some local stations nobody listens to and who dont pay.

She has written features for the Sunday Times, the Guardian, Grazia, Glamour, Marie Claire,Red, the Daily Mail, Mother and Baby, Junior, Woman, Runners World and many others, wrote the much-loved Three Teens and a Baby column for the Telegraph, and the back-page column No, Its Not Just You in Essentials magazine, just before it folded. She takes no responsibility for this.

In 2015 Liz took a sketchy outline of The Middle Years to the Edinburgh Fringe for a full run of one-woman stand-up shows, to critical acclaim by three people, at least one of whom was half awake.

Liz has four children, ranging in age from twenty-two (last seen taking money out of her wallet and wearing her shoes) to two (last seen wiping snot on her trousers).

She has a degree in Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience from Cambridge University, and is a passionate mental health campaigner and director of the mental health platform Headcase. She is also an annoyingly competitive 10 km and half-marathon runner though her knees are no longer very keen on this.

This edition first published in 2020

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Liz Fraser, 2020

The right of Liz Fraser to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN (eBook): 9781789650808
ISBN (Paperback): 9781789650792

Cover design by Mecob

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.