"Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!"

1971, first edition, from Doubleday
Erma Bombeck and Bil Keane
"Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!"
Original price unknown, purchase price $4.00
Hardcover with worn dust-jacket
C+

At the time this book came out, Bombeck had published only one previous humor collection, At Wit's End, which I don't think I've ever read.  Her children were an 18-year-old girl and two boys, 16 and 13.  Keane had been publishing Family Circus since 1960 and had five children, some of them obviously adolescents by then, although the four in the strip remain fixed in time.  Keane and Bombeck were close friends, and he was one of her pallbearers in 1996.  The book opens with Bombeck in a letter and Keane in a one-panel (although not circular) cartoon agreeing that that day is not a good one to start a humorous and affectionate book on teenagers.

This is very much a book of its time, or rather of a few years earlier, with the same immediately dated feel of The Brady Bunch, minus the campiness unfortunately.  It is admittedly a bit surreal to see taller versions of Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, PJ, and their friends, still with tiny semi-circle noses, wearing mod and hippie clothes.  The most dated illustration comes early on, with the son whose messy room includes albums by Iron Butterfly and the Smothers Brothers, and posters that say "Aquarius," "Love," and "Carnaby Street."  This wasn't yet a completely passé vision of adolescence, but it does look more like '68 (or '67) than '71.

As for Bombeck's writing, there are references to the Woodstock album, long hair, and sex education, but it's not all that different from the glimpses of her kids in her books from the later '70s.  I can't say that it's all that hilarious though.  I grew up reading Bombeck, and it's one of my regrets that I had to toss out If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? before even starting this project, because it was in horrible condition.  Even in my preteens, I identified with her housewifely wit.  This book though is more interesting than funny to me these days, even though I'm now middle-aged (but probably permanently childless).  I'm not even sure if I own any other Bombeck book besides this one-- a quick glance at my shelves shows none-- but if I do it'll be interesting to compare with this unique item.