Why Mummy Swears: The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller

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In the end I suppose that’s what marriage comes down to – finding the one special person you want to annoy and be annoyed by for the rest of your life. His mother informed us that she had assumed his wife would be buying his advent calendars for him, now he was married, which came as something of a surprise to me, as I did not remember anything in our wedding vows about ‘To Be Your Bloody Mother From This Day Forth …’ I bought him a calendar the next year as a joke, but he didn’t seem to realise the joke part, going so far as to tell me that for future reference, he actually preferred a Thornton’s calendar to a Dairy Milk one, but he appreciated the thought. And so I continue to buy my forty-year-old husband an advent calendar every year, because apparently I am his mum now, and he is a spoilt child.”

I’ll admit that I found the key character of Ellen a tad difficult to identify with at first. She seemed a bit too ditzy to me – though maybe that’s how all of us mums are and we’re just too sleep deprived to realise it! The first day of the holidays. I suppose it could’ve been worse. I brightly announced that perhaps it might be a lovely idea to go to a stately home and learn about some history. As soon as we got there I remembered why I don’t use the flipping National Trust membership – because National Trust properties are full of very precious and breakable items, and very precious and breakable items don’t really mix with children, especially not small boys. I love books that are written as a diary. I just find it a little more like you’re looking through a window into someone’s real life. You can follow the passage of time through the story way easier and it just feels a bit more personal when you think you’re reading someone else’s diary – a glimpse into their inner thoughts as written down by them. It really is so very true, that while HR might spout a load of drivel about wanting mums to return to work, most people roll their eyes and tut every time a mum says she must leave at 5pm – the designated hour she is paid to work until anyway.

I loved how this book made me howl with laughter, while also being like reading my own views on life and motherhood written down for me to read.

Why Mummy Swears was like reading all about my own thoughts and struggles, but it helped me to laugh at them, which for this sweary mummy was a welcome relief. It is Mummy's 39th birthday. She is staring down the barrel of a future of people asking if she wants to come to their advanced yoga classes, and polite book clubs where everyone claims to be tiddly after a glass of Pinot Grigio and says things like 'Oooh gosh, are you having another glass?' But Mummy does not want to go quietly into that good night of women with sensible haircuts who 'live for their children' and stand in the playground trying to trump. I will confess right now that I must be the only mama at the nursery gate who hasn’t read Why Mummy Drinks. There is an awful lot to like about this book. It is fast-paced, jaunty, witty and very clever. There are a couple of laugh-out-loud moments (always embarrassing when they happen on the bus), but on the whole it is just very amusing. The observations are extremely perceptive and there are numerous situations which I could relate to, despite neither being married or a Mum. It is an easy read, full of situations that we have all encountered, struggled with and probably messed up. The characters are well developed and are plausible, believable and likeable. It reminded me very much of Allison Pearson’s “How hard can it be”, in terms of both content and style.One of my favourite sections was when Ellen’s mother’s stepdaughter goes into labour and Ellen steps up to the plate to help her out. Hers was not an unusual labour – despite the mad dash to the hospital – and yet the comic timing, the description of what was going on and the dialogue managed to turn what is a horrendously grim experience into something truly comic. Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown What I found most interesting of all in the book was Ellen’s struggles with her marriage. Happily ever after is a thoroughly misleading concept. Where I had envisaged childish faces glowing with wonder as they took in the treasures of our nation’s illustrious past, we instead had me shouting ‘Don’t touch, DON’T TOUCH, FFS DON’T TOUCH!” while stoutly shod pensioners tutted disapprovingly and drafted angry letters to the Daily Mail in their heads. Reading Why Mummy Swears will be to some mummies just like having that 5pm snifter – it makes you feel that little bit better.” Private Eye