For three decades, Erma Bombeck chronicled motherhood’s daily frustrations and victories. In this classic anthology, she presents all sorts of mothers, and even a stay-at-home dad, on good days and bad. With hilarious anecdotes and deep compassion, she shows that there is no other profession that demands so much, and rewards so highly.

“Mother” has always been a generic term synonymous with love, devotion, and sacrifice. There’s always been something mystical and reverent about them. They’re the Walter Cronkites of the human race . . . infallible, virtuous, without flaws and conceived without original sin, with no room for ambi valence.
Immediately following birth, every new mother drags from her bed and awkwardly pulls herself up on the pedestal provided for her.
Some adjust easily to the saintly image. They come to love the adulation and bask in the flocks that come to pay homage at their feet on Mother’s Day.
Some can’t stand the heights and jump off, never to be seen again.
But most mothers just try to figure out what they’re supposed to do—and how they can do it in public.
Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience.
It’s the biggest on-the-job training program in existence today.
Motherhood is not a one-size-fits-all, a mold that is all-encompassing and means the same thing to all people.
Some mothers give standing ovations to bowel movements. Other mothers reserve their excitement for an affair.
Some mothers have so much guilt, they cannot eat a breath mint without sharing it. Other mothers feel nothing when they tell a kid his entire pillowcase of Halloween candy got ants in it … and eats it herself.
Some mothers cry when their thirty-year-old daughters leave home and move to their apartments. Other mothers sell their twelve-year-old son’s bed when he goes to a long scout meeting.
I’ve always felt uncomfortable about the articles that eulogized me as a nurse, chauffeur, cook, housekeeper, financier, counselor, philosopher, mistress, teacher, and hostess. It seemed that I always read an article like this on the day when my kid was in a school play and I ironed only the leg of the trouser that faced the audience, knitted all morning, napped all afternoon, bought a pizza for dinner, and had a headache by 10:30.

I think this entire book was written as an essay for Mother’s day. I liked it and while it’s probably older than I am, it’s still valid as a reference book today for young and not-so-young mothers. The humour is still OK in parts, but some of it is dated.

By mid-1970’s, I faced up to a cold, hard fact. Home cooking was dead! A victim of nutrition and a well-balanced diet served up by a mother.
Show biz food was in! Hamburgers with cute names, catchy songs about tacos, and free balloons with every shake. I did what any red-blooded American mother would do. I fought back.
I installed golden arches above the stove with an electric Scoreboard and focused a red light on the pie to keep it warm.
I added a lighted menu and a drive-in window and served everything in a bag that leaked coleslaw and contained a two-inch plastic fork.

It’s a good read still and some people might enjoy some relaxation in form of individual stories about what makes a mother … well… a mother.