Episode 51
A conversation with author Tom James: Does parenting make people better, less selfish members of society?
In this extended episode, I sit down with author Tom James to chat about his hilarious and thought-provoking book, Your Children Are Boring: How Modern Parents Ruin Everything, which delves into society's obsession with children and parenting and the potential consequences of this.
Our conversation touches on how modern parenthood aligns to identity politics, the pitfalls of performing parenthood on social media, changing ideals of childhood development, and more.
Your Children Are Boring is a Sauce Materials publication available on Audible and Amazon in the UK, US, Canada and Europe.
Tom James grew up in Essex, his parents were working class Londoners and after leaving school at 16 he worked in London. 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'). He read a tatty copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson and had an epiphany.
He decided he would change the course of his life, 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 in London. However, writing took a back seat.
More recently though, he had a series of creative forays including writing, producing and presenting a successful comedy podcast I Am Idiot, involved in a surprisingly successful comedy cookery book called Fifty Shades of Gravy: The Cookbook, and outings of prose on Medium and PublicHouse Magazine.
Tom lives in leafy Hertfordshire with two cats, and is somehow a godfather to two of his friends' children.
Audio production by Graham Stephenson
Episode music: Caprese by Blue Dot Sessions
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