How It Works: The Mum

Your mum is there for you through the nappy years, the incessant ‘But why?’ years, the years of after-school sports and sleep-overs; she is a chauffeur, a nurse, a seamstress, a sounding-board, a mediator and a shoulder to cry on.

There are many things she could have been, and other lives she could have had: “Gwen has a 2:1 in Ancient History. She always planned to write a series of novels on Boadicea. Gwen is covered in applesauce. She has spent the afternoon clapping.”

A mum is endlessly patient and is often to be seen with a glass of wine in her hand late at night.

This is an irreverent, hilarious look at what it means to be a mum, with illustrations from the original series of Ladybird Books for Children.

"It’s enough to make Peter and Jane choke on their watercress sandwiches." – The Independent

Do you ever find yourself longing for a simpler time? That time before the horrors of speed-bumps, automated supermarket checkouts and infernal switchboard options; the days when telephones had wires and a reassuring rotating dial, a tweet meant birdsong and Brexit might possibly have meant a new kind of breakfast cereal?

Fear not, for you are not alone. What you need are the new manuals for our times, simple primers for the everyday predicaments we find ourselves in.

Dear friend, what you need is a Ladybird.

Part of the Ladybird Books for Grown Ups series.