A weighty subject coated with light words and humour, Why mother drinks ... tries to pinpoint the frustrations and tribulations of modern motherhood. The need to be a paragon of virtue who has unending patience and good will. I also liked the pet dog, very much. The way he kept giving Ellen disapproving looks after she'd had another blinder was brilliant "The dog could not look more disgusted with me if he tried." Way to go Fido! Some women are idiots unto themselves. Yes I see why she drinks, it's a few hours of fuzzy pleasure not having to face up to the realities of her life and her absolute stupidity of putting up with a man and his family who use her. Falling in love is a dizzying emotion, but the love that comes in marriage brings with it rights and duties, and the duties are all on her side. Ellen really could be anyone of us. She's heading towards a big milestone in her life and she is doing her best to try and be the perfect mother and wife. Well as we only to well know, life is never that easy and even though we may fancy ourselves as being a bit of a Mary Poppins, sadly that is probably more just wishful thinking!

Simon, her ever absent (either mentally or physically) spouse doesn't do much to help; or if at all, does grudgingly and further spoils things. Pe lângă faptul că e amuzantă, reflectă, pe alocuri, sută la sută, provocările vieții de părinte, mai ales a unei mame. The upshot is that she is persuaded that the little cottage she wanted, that the expensive handbags and shoes she desires are just not really going to bring her the emotional and spiritual satisfaction of buying a house in France and letting her sister-in-law live in it. So she does. Her rather well-off parents-in-law descend from their house in France to add to the work our Mummy has to do. They drink, there are boring, repeated stories and only her father-in-law sees that his daughter-in-law is the bottom of the pile, used by everyone, and with no way out. His solution, pour her another drink.Mi-a plăcut că la acest capitol autoarea a găsit de cuviință să discute cu prietenele ei despre nefericire, perfecțiune în aparență, viața ideală și că la toți oamenii există probleme, nu numai la ghinioniști. Așadar, tratează și teme serioase. More like whine. Incessantly. About everything. And everyone. Mweh. I wanted to drink while reading this. Maybe I should have, I may have enjoyed it more.

When we first meet Ellen (Mummy) she is waiting to take her daughter, Jane to her driving test. Her children Jane and Peter are now older. Jane is studying for her A Levels and hoping to go to university and Peter is studying for his GCSEs. She is now separated from her husband Simon and going through the process of a divorce. Throw in some changes at work and Mummy’s plate is full to bursting. However, she still has time to see Hannah one of her oldest friends and babysit Hannah’s 2 year old son Edward, who gives new meaning to the term ‘the terrible twos’. The book follows Mummy’s life in a year and each chapter represents a month and what happens in her life. This will definitely be an eventful year for Mummy, no wonder she’s partial to a drink. So many, laugh out loud moments. Don’t read this book in company, I couldn’t stop laughing. The worst bit was Semen Smoothies! Yes, I would have bought a new blender as well!!

Sometime good things go on for too long. A fourth book could have been good, but this one does't cut it. I have literally never stood wistfully in the supermarket and thought ‘Oh, how I wish someone was trailing behind me constantly whining ‘Mummy, can I have, Mummy can I have?’ while another precious moppet tries to climb out the trolley so they land on their head and we end up in A It genuinely never occurred to me when they were little that this would ever end – an eternity of Teletubbies and Duplo and In The Night Bastarding Garden and screaming, never an end in sight. But now there is. And despite the busybody old women who used to pop up whenever I was having a bad day and tell me I would miss these days when they were over, I don’t miss those days at all.