to be shocked and appalled by the lesbian mum article in The Times...

[peeringintothevoid]

Their six year old son has an iPod.... he's six, for chrissakes!! Do they not care about his developing hearing, sticking earphones in his delicate wee ears?

And isn't that even worse in terms of spoiling them than a DS??

It starts
"Finn, at 6, knows there's someone missing. For him, there's a melancholy hole at the centre of daily life, a figure whose absence makes our family different from the families in books and films: not quite the real thing. He's not shy of complaining to me and Chris about this absence, every couple of days, because he believes we're the ones to blame, and if I look into my heart I know he's right. Chris and I are his mothers, after all; we're the ones who took the selfish, cold blooded decision to bring Finn and his little sister, Una, into the world without a dog.

I also laughed alot that she reports that back in catholic Ireland, her cousin, on seeing the author's mum walking her grandchild round the supermarket, drily remarked "Ah, this must be the Immaculate Conception".

Also loving that the author formed a 'Dykes and Tykes' group when the children were young.

KerryMumbles I don't have an iPod, and wouldn't, tbh, because I'd be tempted to whack it up loud and probably wreck my hearing. My instinct tells me that it's a fairly bizarre and unnatural thing to do to stick a noise source directly against the ear canal.

If the volume is limited though, maybe it's not that harmful.

kerry you can limit ipod volume or buy kids headphones with volume limiter

I am PMSL at this whole thing.
I've bought my DS1 a (very cheap) mp3 player and several different types of headphones in the hope that he'll listen to a story and stop bugging his brothers for a minute, but he refuses to use the damn thing!
I'd make a crap lesbian

wish id read the article feel like i missed summat

You can play them through the car stereo or the docking station. You don't need to put them in their ears.

With lesbian parents, learning how to insert the headphone jack gently may be providing the kid with valuable sex education the parents just can't offer...

pmsl at Heracles

morethan1 are you SHOUTING because you can't hear very well? I'm afraid that could be linked to your headphone use....

You can limit the volume of an iPod anyway.

I've met a 4 year old with a mobile phone who would sit in his bedroom and call his mum downstairs to see if his breakfast was ready - an iPod does not surprise me at all.

By the time you get to the yeargroup I used to teach (8 year olds ish) - iPods are the "must really really want" thing at the moment so a 6 year old with one really doesn't surprise me.

At this point I'll strop off and mutter about how I wasn't even allowed a TV in my bedroom till I was 11... and then it was black and white!

LOL all mine hav ipods

I am shocked and appalled that you read The Times

You can't link to The Times, it's behind a paywall now.

So youre; using the 'lesbian mum' attention-grabbing thing to complain that a 6 year old has an ipod?

Why would a 6 year old not have an ipod? I probably had a tape player when I was 6.

id be more shocked and appalled by the brilliant article on small town racism

OK, you've already come back and say 'yes, getting attention in AIBU', stop being so bloody reasonable, the whole point of AIBU is that we want to scream YES YOU ARE

emptyshell
My 17 and 18 year olds still don't have televisions in their bedrooms!

My 6yo has an ipod with a dock. He listens to times tables and Just So stories. I did have a ltr with a woman but I'm with a man now so he doesn't have headphones.

My 6 year old listens eminem on her ipod - very loud

I read the article, quite funny about their son desperately missing... a puppy :).

But here's a question: is a "Dyke" an offensive term or not? Clare Balding is suing some media person because he called her (or her wife, can't recall which) a Dyke and she felt he meant great offense. Meanwhile, the Times Article uses Dyke quite proudly. I thought Dyke was a term of empowerment gleefully used by lesbians, or is it?

Isn't dyke one of those words that can be offensive if used offensively, but isn't if used by the people it pertains to? A bit like the 'n' word that dare not be spoken aloud. Not sure. I know a friend of mine proudly calls her sister a "dyke on a bike" but I wouldn't use it to a lesbian I didn't know very very well.