The Unhinged Handbook for Parents

The Unhinged Handbook for Parents is a satirical survival guide overflowing with brilliantly unexpected ideas for navigating the beautiful disaster known as raising children.

If you’ve ever looked at your kid, your house, or your sanity and thought, “There has to be an easier way...” congratulations, you’re a normal parent. This book is for what happens after the obvious answers stop working.

This is the book you turn to when the sane solutions fail, the parenting books blur together, and you just need something that actually gets you through the day with everyone still alive.

Packed with hundreds of wildly unexpected, yet strangely effective pieces of advice that real parents have actually tried, this handbook pokes fun at the pressure to be perfect and embraces what parenting really is: creative problem-solving under mild, constant chaos. These are real tactics from real parents who were out of options and decided to try something a little sideways. They just might work for you too, even if you’d never admit it out loud.

Inside, you’ll discover wisdom like:

• Convincing the kids chocolates are actually fancy soaps so you can keep them all for yourself.
• Telling them the Wi-Fi “goes to bed” at 8 p.m. sharp to guarantee some quiet time.
• The old “your eyes change color when you lie” trick for instant honesty.
• Turning chores into a Cinderella-style game so kids do the cleaning while you take a break.
• Tossing cheese puffs on the floor and letting the kids peck them up like little chickens, just to grab a few guilt-free minutes of peace.

Perfect for:

• New parents
• Baby shower gifts
• Mother’s Day / Father’s Day
• Friends who need a laugh
• Anyone contemplating a nap that lasts 3–5 business days

Give it as a gift. Keep it for yourself. Read it when your child is screaming. Or when you are.

About the Author

Jeremy Carson is a father who believes parenting is a giant experiment with no control group. When conventional advice stopped working, he started testing these unhinged ideas on his own family. They’re (mostly) in the process of forgiving him for it.