The long job
Raising Kids
in Australia
The practical guide for Aussie blokes.
The first book was yarns. The second was thirty days. This one is the long job.
Kids do not reset on Monday. They watch the week you actually live.
What is in it
The door. The table. The sideline.
I wrote this for the bloke who already works, already pays, and can feel himself becoming the man he swore he would not copy. You do not need a new personality. You need a few rooms you do not leave early.
Each chapter is short on purpose. What it looks like. How to get it right. Five rules you can keep in your head when you are tired.
- Boots off. Phone down. The job stays on the step.
- Eat at the table. The phone sleeps in the kitchen.
- Stand on the sideline like you already have a job.
- Talk to the boy as if he will live with people. Talk to the girl as if she is people.
- When you blow it, walk back in the next day without a speech.
A page from the book
Come home
Come home
The doorway
Picture this. The ute is still ticking in the drive. You push the door with your shoulder because your hands are full of a bag and a bad day. The kid is on the floor with a plastic dinosaur. They look up to see which version of you came home.
Kids learn the door before they learn your values. If you come through it like a weather event, they will hide. If you come through it like a guest, they will treat you like one. If you come through it like you live there, they will use you. That is the point.
Boots off. Phone down. Put the job on the step with the boots. Say one ordinary thing. Stay long enough to be used.
The rest is in the book.
The chapters
What's inside
You do not need the first two books to do this one. If the kid is already in the house, you did not miss the start.
- 01 The first year
- 02 Come home
- 03 The table
- 04 Screens
- 05 Other people's highlights
- 06 What they swallow
- 07 The machine
- 08 Sport
- 09 School
- 10 The voice you use
- 11 Boys
- 12 Girls
- 13 Money they can see
- 14 FIFO and distance
- 15 Discipline
- 16 Their mother
- 17 Your old man
- 18 The ones who aren't yours
- 19 The stuff
- 20 The body
- 21 The quiet
- 22 A last word
The bloke who wrote it
Grew up in Corio, Geelong. Left school at the end of Year 11 for a carpentry apprenticeship because sitting still in a classroom made him angry and standing on a frame did not.
Thirty years on the tools after that — crews, slabs, a FIFO stretch in the Pilbara — and he still works. Melbourne since 2001. Seventeen years with Michelle. Daughter Ella, sixteen. Son Jack, thirteen.
Raising Kids in Australia is the third book. The first was Don't Be a Soft Cock. The second was How to Be a Man. If any of them sell he will still be at work on Monday.
The other two
Yarns, then thirty days, then this.
You do not need them to read this one. If you want the stories, or the month, they are here. Open in a new tab.
Don't Be a Soft Cock
The yarns. Sites, sheds, FIFO, kitchens. Why the strongest blokes I know aren't the loudest ones.
How to Be a Man
Thirty days. One thing a day. The month after the stories. A sheet you can pin by the kettle.
The first two together · A$29 Don't Be a Soft Cock + How to Be a Man
That is the book.
The door. The table. The phone. The sideline. The kid who is already in the house.