Two Mums and a Dad

by Toby Roberts

Sydney’s leafy northern suburbs were a bastion of Christian conservatism in the 1970s, but the Roberts family was always a little different. If having lots of children, pets and parties made them stick out, then a mum with a procession of live-in lovers had the neighbours agog. Despite the climate of the times, Toby’s parents were able to reach a very bohemian understanding – his dancer mother was free to find love in the arms of younger women, while his doctor father was free to read and pretend it wasn’t happening. Growing up a middle child of four, Toby loved his mother’s girlfriends as if they were older siblings. But when his mum fell for Caro, everything changed. It’s hard enough when your mum and dad divorce, and you move into a new home with two mums – harder still, when one of those mums challenges your masculinity by flogging you in tennis and lifting weights that would give you a haemorrhoid. To make matters worse, Toby had just started high school at a Christian college where Mum’s spiky hair and long trousers weren’t welcome. The usual insecurities about finding acceptance in high school go up a notch or two when you’re a weedy violinist and your two mothers keep kissing in public. This delightful coming of age memoir explores the angst of puberty, school, sport and bad 80s fashion. Beneath the humour and quirky characters, reminiscent of Netflix’s Sex Education series and just as awkwardly funny, lies a deeper reminder of the human need to pursue more authentic lives, and the capacity for people to surprise us by accepting love in all its forms. Over time, the bravery and decency of Toby’s two mums wins admirers and supporters in unlikely places, from rugby-playing schoolboys to deeply religious stay-at-home mums. Even Toby learns to see the value in his embarrassing childhood…

148 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 30, 2021

About the author

Toby has worked as a lawyer, banker, speech writer, and even a session singer, in roles that have taken him around the world. He has written articles for major Australian broadsheets, and a number of short stories that have been published in magazines, converted into podcasts and broadcast on radio. Toby grew up in Sydney’s northern suburbs with his mother and her female partner. He lives in Sydney again now, with his wife, two children and a whippet called Devo. Two Mums and a Dad is his first book.

Reviews

[Scott Whitmont · Rating 5 out of 5]

Navigating adolescence, new schools, emerging sexual urges, relations with the opposite sex and ‘fitting in’ with a crowd of peers can be challenging at the best of times for most young boys. However, when you feel like a geeky nerd who looks like “an undernourished chihuahua”, your mother emerges to be a feminist lesbian and you go to a conservative Anglican school, the challenge of being accepted might feel particularly overwhelming!

This was the case for young Toby Roberts whose new memoir of the 1980s reveals the plight he and his three siblings faced whilst watching their parent’s marriage unravel and their mother’s girlfriends move in to radically change the family dynamic and the pubescent boy’s view of what is normal.

In this unconventional setting, Toby forges ahead experimenting with drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll. On the side, he plays in a youth orchestra. When attending his first football training session, taking up the sport in a futile attempt to impress girls, he rather embarrassingly replies to the coach’s question, “What do you play?” with “The violin, Sir”.

With bathos and laugh-out-loud humour, Roberts self-depracatingly recounts his youthful peccadilloes and misadventures along with more serious issues such as his father’s alcohol consumption and sometime violence. Think of him as a kind of Aussie-version mix between David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs.

Two Mums and a Dad is a tender, thoughtful true tale which will make you think deeply about school, family and love, about acceptance and peer pressures, about sexuality and puberty. And as you contemplate such life issues affecting us all, you’ll be thoroughly entertained and experience the very best of mirth.

[Janet Lapworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written and thought provoking book. A family unfurling toward the spring of new lives. Always sympathetic and self-deprecating with a good touch of wit and discernment, the memoir relates the author’s observations, feelings and struggles as he moves through his childhood and teenage years against a backdrop of his parents’ divorce, his new home in middle class suburbia with two mum’s’ and the dogs, visits to his father’s city penthouse apartment, and often poorly suited education and teachers. Although generous to those closest to him, the author appears to be brutally honest about his attitudes and activities and how these impacted on the turmoil or feelings of disconnection in his life. As the author becomes more settled at university, the family too emerge to a new settled era and connectiveness.

[Sharron Skehan]

Very few writers make me laugh out loud but Toby Roberts is one of them.
'Two Mums and a Dad' is a coming of age tale that bares all. While coming to terms with his beautiful mother's attractiveness to younger women and her sexual flowering, he also has to dodge the bullets of his father's festering anger and resentment. In some hands this subject matter could make for a dark read, but Roberts' same wry humour that helped him survive his painful adolescence makes this debut memoir a delight.
I highly recommended this book for anyone who has ever been a teenager.

[Bianca · Rating 3 out of 5]

✍️ This is the lovely memoir of Toby Roberts and his Family in 1980s Australia and growing up with a lesbian mother amongst the juvenile anguish of daily life.

I absolutely revelled in this story and the balance between the lighthearted and the melancholic themes. The retrospections were full of warmth and humour as well as more crucial topics including puberty, family dynamics, sexuality, alcohol ingestion, adolescence.

This was a delightfully and expressively written story full of inspiring perceptions about the wonderful and quirky Roberts Family who I came to adore.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

My son kept asking me why I had the amused smile on my face as I was reading this (not to mention the chortles of laughter here and there) - I just had to hand him the book to read for himself once I was done... it was hard to put down! Entertaining read, will make a great pressie too!

[Riss · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many moments in this book had me laughing. A wonderful story, thank you to the author for sharing his experiences ❤️

[Sonya Danaher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful nostalgic trip into 70s and 80s suburbia. A coming of age tale with a difference, the authors mum is openly gay at a time when that was certainly not the norm. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and the narrative, these characters will stick with you long after the last page is turned. Toby's mum was a brave woman who lived life on her own terms and her presence in the book is subtle yet important. Toby is a totally relatable 'nerdy' teen growing up in Sydney suburbia and all the insecurities and embarrassments along with some 'defining growing up' moments that come with that time.
Highly recommend, easy to read and will give you some laugh out loud moments for the train!