I Don't Read Parenting Books. Here's What I Read Instead.

I have never finished a parenting book.

I've started a few. Reading what I thought I should. Not what I needed (I guess that's the thing with having children 'earlier'- certainly earlier than people are choosing to in 2026) But somewhere around the second chapter of these books, when the author is telling me about a technique I should try at bedtime or a phrase I should use when my child is having a meltdown, I always end up putting it down.

It's not that I don't care about being a good dad. It's more that I've never really seen parenting as a separate skill to learn from a manual. To me, parenting is a mindset. It's a lifestyle. And if you're genuinely working on yourself — how you think, how you handle pressure, how you build things, how you show up — then you're working on how you parent too.

So instead of parenting books, I read books about life. About building things. About getting out of your own way. About deciding what actually matters and letting go of everything that doesn't.

These are the ones that have genuinely changed something for me. Not in theory — in practice, in daily life, in the way I move through the world and come home to my family at the end of it.

Atomic Habits — James Clear

This one reframed everything for me around what progress actually looks like. I used to think that doing something well meant overhauling everything at once. Atomic Habits quietly told me that's not how any of it works.

Small changes, done consistently, compound into something significant. One per cent better every day. It sounds almost too simple to be useful and then you live by it for a while and realise it's the most practical thing anyone has ever told you.

The result for me is that I can hold a lot of things at once — the blog, building HomeGrownSkills, the day job, four kids, a marriage — without any one of them falling apart, because I'm making small, steady progress across all of them rather than sprinting at one thing and neglecting everything else.

I'm still not perfect at it. I still need to get better at switching off. But I'm building, which is more than I could say before.

The Obstacle Is The Way — Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday introduced me to stoicism and this is where I'd start anyone who's curious about it. The central idea is straightforward: the thing standing in your way is the way. The problem isn't the obstacle. The obstacle is the opportunity.

As a dad, as someone building something from scratch, as a person who has watched life throw some genuinely difficult things at our family — this reframe has been quietly invaluable. You stop asking why is this happening and start asking what can I do with this. That shift changes everything.

The Daily Stoic — Ryan Holiday

If The Obstacle Is The Way is the philosophy, The Daily Stoic is the practice. One page. One thought. Every day.

I come back to this one constantly because it doesn't ask much of you. It just asks you to stop for sixty seconds and think about something that matters. On the days when everything feels like it's moving too fast — and with four kids and a business to build there are plenty of those — that sixty seconds is worth more than it sounds.

It keeps me grounded. That's the only way I can put it.

Feel Good Productivity — Ali Abdaal

I started reading this one and within about twenty pages I understood why I'd been making certain things harder than they needed to be.

Ali's point is essentially that enjoyment isn't the reward for doing the work — it's the mechanism. You do better work when you're actually engaged with it. So the job isn't to push through the boring bits, it's to find a way to make the boring bits less boring.

Which is why I now do my work emails to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Does it look slightly unhinged? Probably. Does it make something I'd otherwise drag my feet on feel like an adventure? Absolutely.

Find the fun in the mundane. It sounds like it could be on a self improvement poster but it works.

Essentialism — Greg McKeown

This is the book that helped me get comfortable with saying no. Not in a selfish way — in a deliberate way. The idea is simple: you can't do everything well, so the job is to identify the things that actually matter and protect them fiercely, and let everything else go.

For a dad trying to build something alongside a full time job and a family, this was genuinely important to read. The temptation is always to say yes to everything and figure it out later. Essentialism gave me permission to be more intentional about where my energy actually goes.

Less but better. That's the whole book, really.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Mark Manson

Don't let the title put you off if it's not usually your thing. This isn't a book about not caring. It's a book about caring about the right things and having the self awareness to tell the difference.

Most of the stress and noise in daily life comes from giving too much brain space to things that genuinely don't deserve it. Other people's opinions. Comparisons that are relevant to you. Outcomes you can't control. Mark Manson makes the case — bluntly and brilliantly — for being more selective about what you allow to matter.

As a parent that hits differently. Because the moment you stop worrying about whether you're doing it the same way as everyone else, you start figuring out what actually works for your family.

What's Your Dream — Simon Squibb

This is the one I feel most personally about. I read it on holiday and by the time I put it down, the idea for HomeGrownSkills existed. I don't mean I'd thought vaguely about something like it — I mean the concept was there, clear enough to build from.

Simon Squibb's whole thing is that most people have a dream they've never done anything about, and that the gap between having the idea and starting is mostly just fear dressed up as practicality. He's relentlessly encouraging without being naive about how hard building something actually is.

If you're sitting on an idea — for a business, a project, a different kind of life — and you keep finding reasons why now isn't the right time, read this book. Then tell me what you're waiting for.

The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel

This one surprised me. I picked it up expecting something dry and came away with a completely different understanding of how people actually think and behave around money — including me.

The insight that stayed with me most is that financial decisions are rarely about numbers. They're about emotions, history, fear, identity. Understanding that has made me more patient, more realistic, and less likely to make decisions about money from a place of anxiety.

When you're trying to build a business and a different kind of life for your family, that perspective matters more than any spreadsheet.

But How Will They Learn? — Jodie Eynon

I couldn't write a list of books that have shaped how I think and not finish with this one.

Jodie spent years as a primary school teacher, watched the system from the inside, pulled our kids out of it, and then wrote the book she wished had existed when we were making that decision. It's honest, it's practical, and it comes from someone who has lived every page of it.

I'm biased, obviously. But I'd recommend it even if I wasn't married to her.

It's the one book on this list that came from inside our own house — and in a lot of ways, it's the one that ties everything else together.

None of these are parenting books. But every single one of them has made me a better parent.

Because that's the thing nobody tells you. The work you do on yourself — the way you learn to think, to build, to handle pressure, to decide what matters — that doesn't stay in a box marked "personal development." It comes home with you. It sits at the dinner table. It shows up in how you talk to your kids when things get hard.

Parenting is just life, seen through a different lens.

Happy Reading!