Peanut Butter, Playdates & Prozac
A funny-because-it’s-true account of modern motherhood.
by Arlene Schusteff
Wyatt-MacKenzie, $12.95
Purchase Peanut Butter Playdates & Prozac
Looking at my bookshelf, I see 15 books about raising a child with ADHD, 10 clinical guides to ADHD, five books about getting organized, four books about women and girls with ADHD…
You probably have a similar collection and, like me, you’ve probably only skimmed most of them. Either you know what you need and go right for it, or you have ADHD and rarely read an entire book.
Peanut Butter, Playdates, & Prozac: Tales from a Modern Mom is one book you’ll find hard to put down. It’s a massage for your sense of humor, which probably took a quick left turn when you became entrenched in ADHD-yours or your child’s.
Arlene Schusteff, the mother of an ADHD child, holds nothing back in relating the daily escapades of modern momhood. In one passage, she writes about parent-teacher conference night at her children’s school-how she glared at the “perfect” moms who showed up dressed to a T. In another, she describes receiving a packet of her daughter’s schoolwork from the kindergarten teacher, and flinching when she finds the brief description of her family inside the folder:
“My Family” Daddy: Likes to play with me Jake: Likes trucks Mommy: Likes to talk on the phone and eat food in her bed
I grinned from ear to ear the entire time I was reading this book. I recognized the truths about parenting that are usually left unsaid, like hating Halloween (shopping, sewing costumes, running with the kids from door to door), and stealing your kids’ French fries.
I’m just glad that the author was brave enough to write about it all. Buy this book, take a break from the chaos of ADHD life, and give yourself permission to laugh out loud.
