When I was a child circa 30 something odd years ago, my mum rarely swore and if she did it was the odd ‘bloody’or ‘sod’ and at worst she might call my dad or one of us boys ‘bastards’ if we really annoyed her. If we were caught swearing as kids, we would get a smacked bum, have our mouths washed out with either salt water or a spoonful of mustard and sent to our rooms. Swearing wasn’t really on tv either , in fact if I recall it correctly, the comedian Dave Allen was the first person to say the F Word On UK tv in 1990 !!
Wow how things have changed in a relatively short period of time, swearimg is common place on many tv programmes post 8pm and the F word is often used multiple times on programmes like celebrity juice, big brother etc during the course of just one episode. We seem to swear a lot more in everyday life both at home and at work, we are easily able to lip read professional sports people using bad language and sadly it becomes more commonplace to hear young children swearing in different forms after seeing their heroes and parents doing it.
‘Why Mummy Swears’ by Gill Sims does a great job at paroding swearing in modern day life at home which actually makes it firstly, a very amusing book and secondly, has made me go repeatedly ‘omg I say that or do that’, it could so easily be entitled ‘Why Daddy Swears’.
So it tells us the story of Ellen, a 40s something mum of 12 year old Jane and 9 year old Peter and she is also married to Simon. The kids bicker and fight ... a lot and she is forever telling them off and swearing at them. Prior to having children Jane had a successful career and made money developing an app before quitting to concentrate on raising her kids. Simon is now the breadwinner but is often away for work, enjoying fine food and drink, adult company and nice hotels. Ellen wants that to change and she wants to go back to work doing what she enjoys and enjoy her life more, sharing the parental responsibilities with Simon more.
We are taken through a year of Ellen’s life that sees her signing up for the PTA and becoming Chair, going back into employment, lying to her new work colleagues about her family status and eventually getting caught out, going out drinking with friends, constantly falling out with Simon to the point of considering seperation, dealing with her children, arguing with her sister about everything and anything, attempting to impress her mum with her life and finding out her father has married a Russian woman who is the same age as her !!
Ellen’s life appears like carnage and veers from one disaster to another and she swears oh so much. Her children pick up on this and start using their mums lanaguage and mimick her actions much to her astonishment and shame, especially when it’s done in front of her parents and sister.
This is a really funny book and had me laughing both inwardly and outwardly so frequently although you knew at times you shouldn’t really be laughing at the action of others, because it is either just so wrong or will only encourage them more.
‘Why Mummy Swears’ by Gill Sims was for me a rib tickling 8 out of 10 and is a perfect holiday read for many of us to read as we lay on a sun lounger during a cruise. Others may look at you as you read it as you will laugh out loud or say something like ‘Oh nooooo’ and they will want to know more about what’s making you do it. On the kindle at the moment you can buy it for £4.99 but actually on amazon you can buy the paperback version for £3.99 so you may want to take the paperback version with you instead.
This is Gill Sims’ second book, with her first released last year entitled ‘Why Mummy Drinks’ , so maybe she is building a theme here of books about things mummies shouldn’t do. More information on Gill Sims and her two books can be found on her publishers website https://www.harpercollins.com/author/cr-127516/gill-sims/
Happy Reading !
Canberralover
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