How advice to her daughter became a book for all

[Photo/Agencies]

Becky Blades wrote her eldest daughter a letter after she left home for college offering all the advice and words of wisdom she wished she had dispensed beforehand.

Her daughter had some advice of her own: Turn the letter into a book. Blades, who lives in Kansas City, Missouri, did just that and the result is a nifty, gifty little book, titled Do Your Laundry or You'll Die Alone, out in April from Sourcebooks.

Blades knows her audience, keeping her pearls mostly text length－and funny.

"They're in this short attention span stage of life," she says. "Our best communications happen in text. It's kind of that irritating motherly voice that we know and love, but at that stage in life they really don't like to hear it."

So how did it come to pass that kids leave home these days without the most basic survival skills: laundry, mending or the sense to know that good posture is slimming?

Now, her youngest is a college sophomore and her older, driven one just graduated from Harvard. And mom just got around to writing the book.

Blades numbers her bits of advice and inspiration, with 271 in all. She includes seven ruled blank pages at the end for moms and dads to write in their own pearls before handing the book over to their kids.

Rather than data-driven bullet points or chapters of soliloquy like so many parenting books are crammed with, Blades offers humor and snark to connect.

She takes on sex, bullying, common courtesy, etiquette and basic interpersonal skills such as: "Look people in the eye. You'll discover this is hard to do while looking at your phone" and, "Listen. No, but really listen."

So are her girls, slightly older now, doing just that? Most of the time, Blades says.

"I was talking a lot about the book before it was done, so they're really sick of hearing about it," she says.

"Their dad will always say: 'Hey guys, that's in the book. For cryin' out loud, it's in the book'."