Milkshakes, ‘mad’ advice and archive fever: Why Richard Glover is the happiest man in the room

I arrive early at the Tropicana Caffe in Darlinghurst, but Richard Glover has got there first and is sitting smiling to himself in a corner booth, the happiest man in the room.

Glover explains that he is coming up for air after a year of “archive fever”. “The historian Clare Wright talks about the term. I’ve been able to spend a year, often in the state library, with the manuscripts and the books and the fever of ‘I’ve got to find this document’.”

Glover’s latest book, How to Ruin a Child , is the fruit of these monastic labours – a moving and often very funny examination of child-rearing in Australia, from the early days of absurd discipline to today’s mad mix of helicopter caregiving and internet-driven parenting fads.

After 26 years of live radio, Glover left the ABC in 2024, and for the first time has been able to plunge wholeheartedly into a project.

“There’s something wonderful about having the time to do research,” he says. “My other books were written by diving into the library for two hours and then going into work at 11 o’clock.”

He describes the thrill of uncovering century-old teaching notes, beautifully handwritten in copperplate, that shed light on the early thoughts of education researchers.

The biggest revelation, though, was that hardly any of the parenting experts had the faintest idea what they were doing.

“It is incredible how mad the ideas were,” he says. “Absolutely mad. The common thread, of course, was that hardly any of the experts actually had kids.

“The advice was very explicit – don’t cuddle. If they cry it is an exercise for their lungs, if you do cuddle them when they’re crying, it’s their first lesson in self-indulgence and they will become spoilt little tyrants.”

The conversation flows – with a one-year-old and a five-year-old at home, I’m all ears – and we forget to order.

But as the lunchtime buzz begins to grow, the waiter begins hovering and I pick up the menu and, given that we’re talking about kids, randomly ask for a banana milkshake.

“Oh well, if we’re in that territory,” Glover says, lighting up. “Wonderful. I’ll have a caramel milkshake, please. I haven’t had one in years. Yes, please.”

Glover opts for the pasta con gamberi as a main – malfadine pasta with king prawns, chilli, garlic white wine and tomato sugo – and I order the bolognese, a delicious braised beef ragu with tomato and parmagiano-reggiano, and we split a bruschetta entree.

Tropicana is a cheerful Darlo institution – Tropfest film festival was founded here, and at one stage it reportedly had an internal alarm that warned patrons when a parking inspector was lurking nearby – and the food is wholesome, fresh and fun.