If you don’t know who Erma Bombeck is, I won’t hold it against you. I, too, was young when Mrs. Bombeck was wildly popular, and she died in 1996. Born in 1927, she became a journalist in the 1940s in Ohio and became famous for a syndicated newspaper column, “A Wit’s End,” that chronicled the hilarious ironies of homemaking and parenting.

The wife and mother of three, known for her savvy, sharp humor, drew laughter from women galore in her columns, books, magazine articles, radio spots and television stints. Pushing back, perhaps, against Mrs. Cleaver and the perfectly pressed housewife, Mrs. Bombeck told it like it was — in a funny, real way.

She wrote countless things like this: “When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.” She also wrote simple yet profound sentiments like this: “Children make your life important.”

I remember watching Mrs. B on “Good Morning America” as a youngster. She offered snippets on the show — part advice, part stand-up comedy — from 1975 to 1986.

Surely I couldn’t appreciate all of her wisdom then, but I remember finding her funny and looking forward to her segment. As I, at age 40, reconsider her today — Mrs. B started her column at about the same age I started mine — I wonder if I just haven’t found some real wisdom? I’ll have to get one of her 15-plus books and see.



ERMA BOMBECK RAISED three children: one, an adopted daughter; and two boys she grew and delivered despite having received diagnoses of infertility. I wondered what her children had to say about her. Mrs. Bombeck’s daughter, Betsy, wrote this in memoriam: “Her presence was so much greater than the five-foot-two she stood. I loved to put my hand in her … hands …. From my mom I learned to laugh at myself and give much to others. Live each day to its fullest, so that when you go to bed you know you’ve done it all.”

Very nice, eh? Not too saccharine-sweet like greeting cards that just seem, to me, to be so completely inauthentic. But not negligent or angry, either, like some adult children are toward their mothers.

Remember, I’m thinking these days about different family relationships. That mother-daughter one, well, I find it tricky — mostly because, like I told you, I don’t know what a good pursuit of femininity is in the first place. And I’m passing SOMETHING on to my girls every day.



CHANGING LANES, HERE, to note a couple of other things about mother-daughter relationships.

• I’ve read it’s important to be friendly, of course, with our daughters, but we’re not to be their FRIENDS until they’re flirting with adulthood pretty seriously. Rhetorically (as least I hope so): What 12-year-old really wants a “cool” mom? I know I didn’t. Girls need a mom, not another girlfriend. There’s a certain sage wisdom and maturity they’re seeking. Oh my.

• While we’re certainly “passing on” many things and shaping our girls in many ways, I’ve come to see it’s not for me to demand my daughter become a mini-me. In my case, I hope she does not. Our girls are people in their own rights. My husband astutely noted there are many different kinds of trees. Most have the same basic makeup and characteristics — trunks, branches, roots, leaves — but they can look very different and have completely different functions. I can’t wrap my brain around going farther with this analogy just yet — ie, my daughter is a silver maple while I’m a pokey hawthorn or something — but there’s something here worth considering.

• However, unless they’re saturated with pop culture or some other ubiquitous influence, our daughters WILL look to us to see what a woman should be. They will, unwittingly, follow in our footsteps for a while, or, if they can’t, they’ll be feeling like they’re failing because they’re different. We mothers should consider, carefully, what we want to pass on.

Erma Bombeck might have gotten it right if her daughter truly took this away from her mother’s life: “… laugh at myself and give much to others.”



Next week: Let’s take a break from family relationships, and I’d like to offer our list of fun things we hope to do over the summer — all relatively local and inexpensive. If you have ideas, be in touch.



Goshen News columnist Stephanie Price is a wife, mother, teacher, childbirth educator, midwife’s assistant and nursing student living in Union, Mich. Contact her at wholefamily@goshennews.com, 269-641-7249 or on Facebook at the page “Whole Family Column by Steph Price.”