Living Through Charlie — Rebecca Woods

Meg Norton is ill-equipped to succeed in the mom-eat-mom private school pressure cooker of twenty-first century Southern California. Always feeling as if she missed the Cool Mom Memo, Meg tries to play the part of perfect mother to daughter Annie and son Charlie and devoted wife to husband, Chuck. When Charlie's odd behavior at his posh private preschool begins to alienate the other kids and their moms, Meg finds herself torn between her husband's desire for the perfect family and her son's need to march to the beat of a drummer only he can hear. Feeling isolated and alone she retreats into a nightly jug of chardonnay. While Meg's marriage reaches the breaking point, Charlie receives a diagnosis that rocks her world. Meg realizes that to be the mom Charlie deserves, reclaim her life and keep her family together, the private schools and the chardonnay have got to go. If the measure of a mom is the success of her children, then what kind of mom raises a child who hides at birthday parties, wears an old Halloween costume and barks like a dog during the school Christmas program? LIVING THROUGH CHARLIE is the story of a boy who teaches his mother to love and accept him for who he is, and to love and accept herself in the process.