Guardian Family: Confessions of a Full Time Mother

[morningpaper]

Confessions of a Full Time Mother

"Kirsty Gunn is not working on her next novel. She is not a columnist for the London Review of Books. She has chosen instead to disappear from the professional world and embrace a domestic life just as rich and interesting and inspiring ... "

PAH! She's opted out of the professional world - well except for this article and the book she has just written about her "year as a full time mum" - full time that is, except for the 30 hours a week that her children are at school in which I presume she fannies about writing drivel like this.

At first I thought it was an ironic joke, but sadly not. Perhaps she is friends with that woman who survived the concentration-camp conditions of Fulham after that breeze blew her wooden grapes off the sideboard...

[motherinferior]

I agree with you, MP. She's writing in school hours. Like, er, masses of other freelancers male (some of them) and female (lots of them).

[marthamoo]

Poncetastic.

[morningpaper]

"I see now that I, too, have been consumed by my bearing, my giving birth to, nursing and caring for my two children. To hold them, for as long as I can, always to hold them: this has been my choice. To feel myself break with tiredness at their needs and still want to crawl into bed beside them and feel my own breath at the soft base of their necks ... This my desire, my burn."

Eh? How come it took her until they were at school before she bothered looking after them for a year then?

[marthamoo]

And yes, I am stalking you around the threads today, mi

[morningpaper]

"As someone I'll call Will A put it recently, so gently and cleverly, as we were sitting next to each other at a publishing dinner talking of these things, "You women," he said, "you mothers, when you come here, like tonight, when you enter the world to come to one of our meetings, or to a lunch, whatever ... You look wonderful, you talk, you've done your hair, you've got shoes on ... And all I can think is: you've just left your house behind you with your children in it and that must be like you've left somewhere ... that's like a war zone, somewhere I can't even imagine ... " And this is it entirely."

Really? With TWO SCHOOL AGED GIRLS? A WARZONE?

[marthamoo]

My desire, my burn...is to get to bedtime without throttling them so I can have a glass of wine.

[marthamoo]

Will A - also known as Mr What-a-Nob.

[morningpaper]

"Did I write that cheque for the gas last week? What kind of mortgage do we have? I don't seem interested any more in hanging on to facts like these."

XENIA!! Tell her

[wheresthehamster]

Exactly who she reminded me of as well - Caroline Phillips.

[berolina]

After those quotations, mp, I don't think I can bear the article.

[motherinferior]

I genuinely cannot read it. A kind of sickly mist descends.

[3sEnough]

Yawn

[marthamoo]

Do people honestly, truly get paid for writing this kind of navel-gazing drivel?

[hippmummy]

I can't work out if my cold is making me too fuzzy to read it properly, or if it's just waffling nothingness..

[berolina]

Apparently so, marthamoo

[marthamoo]

It's waffling nothingness.

[morningpaper]

It's really bad

[morningpaper]

Imagine a whole BOOK of it!

[motherinferior]

It's so annoying, MM, but they do .

I have to say, that as someone who spends four days a week working and will switch to four-over-five next year when DD2 goes to school - ie working mainly in school hours - she does not fill me with enthusiasm for her self-styled SAHM life.

[morningpaper]

My Year At Home

phhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtttttttttttttttttttt

Try doing it BEFORE everyone is out of the house for 6 hours a day

Trying changing your Mooncup with two children and your husband in the bathroom

[Freckle]

Strangely, I'd just read that article before logging on here.

I thought it was wallpaper paste. How can anyone claim to be a full-time SAHM when they only opt for that role when their children are at school and then only stick it for one year??? What a lightweight!

[morningpaper]

I can only assume she is married to the editor of the Guardian or something