The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting [Paperback]

Christie Mellor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2004

Parents were here first! How did the kids suddenly take control? Sure the world has changed from the days when children were supposed to be seen and not heardbut things have gotten a little out of hand. What about some quality time for the grownups? Author Christie Mellor's hilarious, personal, refreshing, and actually quite useful advice delightfully rights the balance between parent and child. In dozens of short, wickedly funny chapters, she skewers today's parental absurdities and reminds us how to make child-rearing a kick. With recipes, helpful hints, and illustrations, this high-spirited book is the only book parents will really needand enjoy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mellor, mother of "two darling little angels," tells parents it’s time take back their lives—and their right to have a few cocktails at a child’s midday birthday party. With chapters such as "Bedtime: Is Five-Thirty Too Early?" and "Screaming: Is It Necessary?," the author lays out a plan for parents to enjoy themselves and not be slaves to their children while still offering their kids a warm, nurturing environment. Mellor’s advice has a retro twang, and is always wry and often quite funny, standing in sharp contrast to the guidance normally found in books of its kind. The author urges readers to recruit children to pitch in with household chores ("Three years old is not too soon to start learning the fundamentals of decent vacuuming") and thinks excessively childproofing a home is ridiculous, since kids find a way to open complicated locks anyway ("You might as well festoon all your drawers and cabinets with brightly colored flags that say ‘Hey, You! Kid! Fun and Danger in Here!’"). Mellor’s guide will surely be a boon to parents in need of some "grown-up time."
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Review

Harried mothers who have given over their lives to their adorable little angels, beware: This book is the equivalent of a cocktail in the face. You may even forget to patiently count to three the next time tiny Tallulah needs a time-out. "Let us be perfectly frank," writes Mellor. "You were here first." The empowerment is almost unbearable! "It's time to warm up the ice cubes, curl up on the sofa, and send darling Spencer into the other room to play by himself," insists Mellor. The book details the glories of saying no to your children, explains when you've gone too far in childproofing your home, laments our over-reliance on camcorders ("a disease") and suggests that the Tooth Fairy is getting robbed. Best of all, there's a recipe for teaching your tot how to mix a simple martini just the way you like it -- with lots of alcohol... -Chicago Sun-Times

Mellor, mother of "two darling little angels," tells parents it's time take back their lives--and their right to have a few cocktails at a child's midday birthday party. With chapters such as "Bedtime: Is Five-Thirty Too Early?" and "Screaming: Is It Necessary?," the author lays out a plan for parents to enjoy themselves and not be slaves to their children while still offering their kids a warm, nurturing environment. Mellor's advice has a retro twang, and is always wry and often quite funny, standing in sharp contrast to the guidance normally found in books of its kind. The author urges readers to recruit children to pitch in with household chores ("Three years old is not too soon to start learning the fundamentals of decent vacuuming") and thinks excessively childproofing a home is ridiculous, since kids find a way to open complicated locks anyway ("You might as well festoon all your drawers and cabinets with brightly colored flags that say 'Hey, You! Kid! Fun and Danger in Here!'"). Mellor's guide will surely be a boon to parents in need of some "grown-up time." -Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811840549
• ISBN-13: 978-0811840545
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

While pursuing a happy life that includes an interesting husband, two almost-always pleasant children, and a neurotic duck, Christie became a vociferous cheerleader for the "other kind of parenthood," the anti-perfection, you-deserve-a-life kind. Her first book, "The Three-Martini Playdate," was a harbinger of a new trend for today's beleaguered parents, helping them to withstand the unceasing and overbearing good advice and pressure to raise perfect, highly enriched offspring,. She continued the thread with "The Three-Martini Family Vacation." Christie also likes to draw, and does so repeatedly throughout the pages of "Raised by Wolves: Clues to the Mysteries of Adulthood," out in paperback in the spring of 2010, a book designed for the adult child whose parents did NOT read "The Three Martini Playdate." Christie's rants have been published in Britain in The Guardian, Junior Magazine, and the Sunday Express, and in Australia's Sunday Life Magazine, and she's been heard on Britain's BBC radio and American Public Radio's Marketplace, in addition to being reviewed and interviewed in Newsweek, Playboy, The New York Times, People, and other publications.
"You Look Fine, Really" is due from HarperCollins in the spring of 2010. It's for the ladies. The gals. The women. Specifically women over the age of 40. And yet, it's totally girly! Christie is very excited about this one.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just the Kind of Advice I Was Waiting For, October 19, 2004

By 

Tere (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting (Paperback)

Finally, a book about being an effective, responsible parent without losing your sense of humor along the way! If you think that today's parents let their kids run the household and the whole family's lives, and if you long for the days when children behaved in public, when parents weren't constantly excusing their kids' lack of manners, and when parents actually had their own lives, then read this book! Full of humor (some of it slightly acidic), the book does yield some practical advice and offers tips on how to parent well and not create monster children in the process. Read parts of it out loud to your spouse or friends for added fun -- I had my husband laughing his (...)off with some of the funnier parts.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and charming, April 22, 2004

By 

superba (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting (Paperback)

Finally, a grownup view of parenting, delivered with humor and insight. Christie Mellor delivers a subtle message of fairness and balance, envisioning an ideal household where grownups' wishes are given equal time with those of children. This means raising children not only to behave well, but to develop a working sense of justice. As comical as the book is, I think Mellor has given voice to an important set of values that deserve our attention. I hope the issues raised in The Three-Martini Playdate will be discussed in the media.

From a delighted parent.

p.s. As a big fan of Miss Manners (and now Miss Mellor), I was surprised to see the [comparison]. Judith Martin's humor relies on an imperturbably ladylike primness and pedantry; Mellor is far more slapstick, loopy and fun. Buy both, and see for yourself!!

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I had to laugh at the negative reviews, June 21, 2008

By 

Urie Bay (San Diego) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting (Paperback)

First, for those who missed it, the comments about martinis are tongue-in-cheek.

I laughed out loud over some of the reviews which describe the author as not liking children or being intolerant of other parenting techniques, because I *KNOW* what those people's kids are like. The author does not dislike children nor is it alternate parenting techniques she is intolerant of--it's the whiny, spoiled rotten brats they produce she doesn't like.

I'm pediatrician who's been in practice a long time, and I spend all day with kids who cover the spectrum. I love kids. I hate whining. Here's a news flash for some parents--most kids are not actually whiny! Find that hard to believe? Then yours probably are.

This is actually my single favorite parenting manual. Yes, there's a lot of hyperbole, but the underlying message, that kids should join your world and not take over the universe, is one that a lot of parents don't seem to understand these days. This book gives parents permission to set boundries, to actually take some personal time and to plan activities for themselves, not just their kids, without feeling guilty about it. Happier adults with balanced interesting lives make much better parents.

So, if you want to raise a self-centered, whiny pill of a child incapable of entertaining himself, sleeping in his own bed or calming himself down without breast feeding when he's four or five, who thinks that saying the words "excuse me" is a free pass to interrupting adult conversation, and who believes the entire adult population was put on the world to cater to his every whim (and god knows apparently a lot of you do, because you seem to put a lot of time and energy into it) this really isn't the book for you.

If, on the other hand, you want to raise a happy, healthy, responsible, self-confident child who understands that life should be balanced, doesn't argue endlessly when you say "no", says "please" and "thank you" when you're at friends' houses, who you can take to a restaurant without worrying about how she's going to behave, who eats the well-balanced dinner you've spent a chunk of your evening preparing, who is capable of entertaining herself for an hour or so (without turning on the television!) while you do other things, who goes to bed at night without tantrums and most of all who your friends and family enjoy being around, then you're going to love this book.

And no, I don't expect kids to be perfect--far from it! But I do expect them to be raised with some modicum of boundaries and manners. And I expect parents not to completely give up their adult lives and relationships. For what it's worth, there are far more pleasant than unpleasant children around, but boy, can the unpleasant ones ruin an afternoon, dinner out, or a family gathering!!

No, it's not a manual of precise techniques (for that, check out the Super Nanny website--Jo has a lot of good videos there) to suddenly tame the child you've let run your life for however many years, but it's an important book about the role children should play in a family.

As I tell my patients' parents, yes, your child should BE the center of your universe, and they should feel safe and secure in life and in their relationship with you, but they shouldn't BELIEVE they're the center of the universe. Otherwise, they're in for a really rude awakening later. Raising children other people don't enjoy being around does the kids a huge disservice. Not to mention the rest of society who has to interact with them.