#45. Chapter Headings Have Dates – Why Mummy Doesn’t Give A F@**! by Gill Sims (Audible)

There are times when you really need some light relief. I remember seeing the first book in this series ‘Why Mummy Drinks’ and laughing out loud in the bookshop as I flicked through a few of the pages. I felt like I had to buy it for my friend who had two young children at the time and seemed permanently exasperated. I know where I am as a cat “servant”…bottom of the chain and only there to supply food, shelter and a clean litter tray. Other than that I’m pretty much redundant. Actually, it does sound a tiny bit like having children really…only you do expect a certain lack of interest from a cat before it enters your life. 

At some point I thought I’d buy the audio version of that book for myself (I think it may have been a 2-4-1 deal!) I was getting strange looks from passers by as I shrieked with laughter walking through the local woods as I listened to it. 

‘Why Mummy Doesn’t Give A F@**!!’ is the third book in the series, and it is just as funny as the previous books. #45 of this challenge was a perfect excuse to buy book number three and as I love the way Gabrielle Glaister narrates these books, I’ve continued to buy the Audible versions.

 

“Family begins with a capital eff.

 

I’m wondering how many more f*cking ‘phases’ I have to endure before my children become civilised and functioning members of society? It seems like people have been telling me ‘it’s just a phase!’ for the last fifteen bloody years. Not sleeping through the night is ‘just a phase.’ Potty training and the associated accidents ‘is just a phase’. The tantrums of the terrible twos are ‘just a phase’. The picky eating, the back chat, the obsessions. The toddler refusals to nap, the teenage inability to leave their beds before 1pm without a rocket being put up their arse. The endless singing of Frozen songs, the dabbing, the weeks where apparently making them wear pants was akin to child torture. All ‘just phases!’ When do the ‘phases’ end though? WHEN?

Mummy dreams of a quirky rural cottage with roses around the door and chatty chickens in the garden. Life, as ever, is not going quite as she planned. Paxo, Oxo and Bisto turn out to be highly rambunctious, rather than merely chatty, and the roses have jaggy thorns. Her precious moppets are now giant teenagers, and instead of wittering at her about who would win in a fight – a dragon badger or a ninja horse – they are Snapchatting the night away, stropping around the tiny cottage and communicating mainly in grunts – except when they are demanding Ellen provides taxi services in the small hours. And there is never, but never, any milk in the house. At least the one thing they can all agree on is that rescued Barry the Wolfdog may indeed be The Ugliest Dog in the World, but he is also the loveliest.”

Gill Sims created a blog in 2016 chronicling the lives of two children, Peter and Jane, and offering quirky, comical responses to the various issues parents faced with their own little darlings. The blog quickly went viral and so the first “Mummy” book was published. It won the Sunday Times Fiction Bestseller of 2017, and the rest, as they say is history.

The ‘mummy’ of the books is Ellen Russell who has two children, Jane and Peter. You could say that her husband Simon passes for the third child, as he invariably causes additional disarray to her already chaotic life.

Month by month, we follow Ellen and her brood through the year, and just like the two earlier books, Ellen’s hopes and dreams for a perfect year are blown apart by her loved ones. This book is a hysterical mix of funny incidents and poignant moments of reflection as we hope Ellen will not crumble under all the pressure that surrounds her. A word of warning if you’re easily offended, as the title suggests, mummy is prone to a lot of swearing, or certainly alluding to it. FML! We’ve all been there Ellen, we’ve all been there!

In this, the third instalment, life is still not getting any easier as both Jane, now 15, and Peter, 13, are in the “teenage phase.” By now, Ellen is hoping all the problems of small children will have disappeared and her children will have grown to be fun and helpful. You can surely rely on older children to assist with some of the chores can’t you? Apparently not, the description of the smell of a teenage boys bedroom had me in stitches and feeling sorry for all those mums out there reading the book thinking “is this what I have to look forward to?!”

Just when you think Ellen’s world can’t get anymore stressful, her husband Simon announces that he has cheated on her and thinks he needs some ‘time out’ from the marriage to gather his thoughts of what he wants and whether he wants to stay married. Marriage counselling is definitely not working. (Q. What’s the best thing about Ellen? A. Her lasagne.) I mean really Simon…I’m surprised Ellen didn’t slam the lasagne dish on your head when you got home.

Whilst lamenting on the state of her marriage, Ellen decides she is not going to wither away in a corner waiting for Simon to decide her future. If Simon wants a break, he can have a permanent break; so she initiates divorce proceedings and puts the family home up for sale. He can live in a minimalist flat if he wants, she is moving to the country with her children, and she’s going to have some chickens so there will be fresh eggs daily. How lovely.

Sadly for Ellen, the idyl is quickly ruined by the children and even the chickens refuse to comply with her wholesome vision of the future. Her vision of this perfect chocolate box cottage suddenly takes a turn when she actually moves in. The perfect cottage, glittering in the morning sunshine, is actually full of damp which requires the subtle placement of furniture to hide it.  

People might be dismissive of these books and their brightly coloured quirky covers, but amongst the laugh out loud moments there is a level of touching moments that make you stop and think. How many parents look at their children and reflect on how they thought they would always be babies or toddlers needing their help. Now, as teenagers, they need their space and their friends instead…but as this book shows, even teenagers need their parents sometimes.

I think that is what makes the books work, this jump from hilarity to tackling serious issues with sensitivity. All the best sitcoms on TV have this nuance between hilarity and poignancy. Divorce doesn’t just impact mum and dad, it affects the children and even the pets. Everything is disrupted. This is the crazy world of parenting. What do you do for the best? Is it the best for you, the best for the children, or the best for everyone?

I loved listening about Ellen’s move to her dream cottage, mainly because in my head I would love to move to the country to a quaint house surrounded by sheep, goats, horses, chickens and ducks, but I know in the real world it would be hard work with constant worry about any one of the animals falling sick. Plus it’s hard enough going on holiday when you only have a cat, how the heck would I find someone willing to look after a menagerie for a week?!

I find listening to these books so joyful. They allow an insight into someone else’s world through humour. You just know that everything in the books will be based on something that has happened to the author or someone she knows. They give me a good belly laugh, even if I anticipate what is coming next, and they are my go to read if I want to find the funny side of this chaotic world.

 

Genre: Biographical Fiction, Comedy, Family Life, Fiction, Feel-good

Release Date: 27^th June 2019

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Listening Time: 10h 43 min

 

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