Where's your mother? Not well today. Said carefully and neutrally, as if pretending things were normal would make them so. Transform life into a manageable thing. As if ten year olds everywhere were the ladies of the house, the caretakers of the family. Brooks explores the internal dilemma of a child forced to become parent to a mentally unstable mother, as well as the guardian of her three younger siblings. With fearless candour, Linda peels back the layers of a child with adult responsibilities. What becomes of Kate when the years fall by and the reaches adulthood? Can the child within be denied voice?

"This book is designed for anyone who has a longing to be themselves but has no idea of how to go about it. Being ourselves requires being real about how we feel about what's going on in our lives. "It also reveals how our past impacts on our current attitudes and behaviour. "The book is valuable for those who have reached a place where nothing seems to work and there seems to be no way out of the mess we find ourselves in. It provides no quick fix-there is none. "It also presents God as the source of the unconditional love and acceptance we all long for. "The journey of being real requires us to discover that our Creator is more committed to our heart than we are. He longs to teach us how to love ourselves and then our neighbour. He desires us to be able to love our enemy. Love him, but struggle with what he does. What we do is not what we are. "You will find this journey confronting. I did." Dr Steele Fitchett was born in Atherton, North Queensland in 1934. He attended boarding school in Brisbane, which saved his life. He worked at BHP in Newcastle, NSW before being led into medicine, graduating from Sydney University in 1963. After training in obstetrics and gynaecology at Newcastle and obtaining a specialist degree at Oxford, Steele introduced the innovative technique of regional anaesthesia for caesarean sections. In a break with traditional practice, he encouraged husbands to be involved in the delivery of their offspring-a move that alarmed some fathers at the time, but which is now accepted as normal and natural. Dr Fitchett's caring nature emerged in his strong support for mothers who had lost their babies. He ministered empathy and healing to their troubled hearts. A radical change in direction in the 1980s saw him involved in pioneering palliative care. This counselling and medical role soon led to full time bereavement and stress counselling, a service he provided from 1985 until he retired in 2006. Steele Fitchett's humanity has touched thousands of lives in the Newcastle region. His service to that community was recognised with an Unsung Heroes award from the Commonwealth Government in 2008. Steele Fitchett continues his ministry by supervising clinical psychologists and counsellors.