I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression

Erma Bombeck writes about raising children and running a household, and the book gathers her short humorous pieces on motherhood and family life. The tone is dry and comic, with a sharp eye for the small daily absurdities that come with parenting.

The subjects are ordinary and close to home. She covers cleaning up after the kids and her husband, and the place of mothers-in-law in a family, whom she treats as expendable. Each piece turns a familiar domestic situation into a joke, then looks for the feeling underneath it.

This is non-fiction in the form of a humor collection, drawn from what Bombeck has learned about children and family over the years. It is written as personal observation, not as a how-to guide or a reported study, so it suits readers who want a light, quick read about family life from a mother's point of view.

The pieces are short and can be taken one at a time. The mood is mostly comic, though some of the humor aims at the moments that make a parent laugh and tear up at once. The last chapter turns to growing up and being a parent.