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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to find this article on motherhood inFURiating?

692 replies

BlooferLady · 26/03/2011 08:37

Guardian writer in 'motherhood is hell' shock

Disclaimer: je suis TTCing. Erm, for a LONG time!

I didn't want children for years. YEARS! Was violently opposed to it And you know why? Because it looked like one long unending saga of drudgery, misery, isolation and loss of identity and self-respect (I have a large family and thus had the opportunity to observe its effects up close every 18 months or so).

We're TTCing now - hormones and a little wisdom took over, and I would very much like to be a mother. And yet here on MN and in the press I find my old terrors reinforced, and this article sums it all up. Everything I feared is true...

BUT IS IT? By the end of the article I wanted to slap the woman. She complains of her life dwindling to a miserable compressed world of perma-exhaustion, leaking breasts, nappy changes, never seeing her old friends, losing her sense of a professional life, only ever socialising with mothers and mother and toddler groups, bitterly envying women who still go to work, angry with her partner for not helping out round the house...

Someone PLEASE tell me it doesn't have to be like this. I wanted to yell at her, get out of the damn house and DO stuff you moaning bint! No-one MAKES you go to mother and toddler groups - put the creature in a sling and wander round the V&A! Let your partner do a bottle feed in the evening and go out for a boozy dinner! Do some work from home! MAKE your partner help out!

Surely there are people here on MN whose entire character isn't subsumed into the drudgery of being a mother? Who continue to be lively, interested in the larger world, engaged with their friends, interested in their career, happy in their relationships, still maintaining a sense of self and self-respect? For motherhood extends, informs, illuminates their life - doesn't effectively end it! Because if not, I don't want children. AIBU?!

OP posts:

redstripeyelephant · 03/04/2011 10:01

What is there to be gained by being so derogatory towards a huge group of women who choose to stay at home?

From what I can recall from this long thread, the SAHMs have all said they respect the choices of working women it's just not for them or not financially viable.

On the other hand many (but by no means all) of the working mothers and so called feminists have been nothing but vitriolic in their abuse of SAhMs. Calling us lazy, prostitutes, betraying all women.Oh, and now I can add sham and pootling to my job description, thanks.what is the point? What do you hope to gain by being so nasty? It is not for you to judge my life and there are ways to get your point across without descending to this level.

Anyway we are all mothers so happy mothers day.

redstripeyelephant · 03/04/2011 10:01

What is there to be gained by being so derogatory towards a huge group of women who choose to stay at home?

From what I can recall from this long thread, the SAHMs have all said they respect the choices of working women it's just not for them or not financially viable.

Anyway we are all mothers so happy mothers day.

Xenia · 03/04/2011 11:03

I simply say the more women who give up jobs the harder it is for women in the workplace to make progress. It's a fact.

Some are lazy some not. I have never said they are all lazy. It is hard work looking after under 5s whilst keeping house at the same time. We're all done it and know it's hard.

We certainly all have much more in common as parents than we do as non parents whatever our gender even.

allegrageller · 03/04/2011 11:05

sadly lots of that article also rang true for me.
but the benefits of motherhood are long term. A lifelong love for fantastic people.

Sometimes I think the kids have ruined my life, at others, that they are the best thing I ever did. It's that extreme.

For a more positive view you might want to read Anne Enright.

allegrageller · 03/04/2011 11:18

btw Bloofer- and this may or may not make you feel better about motherhood- I am almost definitely 'bad mother' material myself. Badly organised, depressive, frequently self-pitying etc although I do try to pull myself out of it as much as I can. Having kids definitely broke my marriage up; we just did it totally different ways and I felt we totally lost eachother to the kids. We worked as a working couple but not as parents.

So now I have 50:50 custody or sometimes less due to my ongoing mental health issues. A situation most 'normal mums' could not tolerate and indeed would never reach because they would always have been the primary carer. My kids quite often say they want to go back to their dad's :(. But I adore them. They are such a beautiful pair of little boys and their development and ideas are a total delight. Even if I wish they were less obsessed with the Nintendo DS and sweets ;)

Jogon · 03/04/2011 11:23

Xenia.

Some women are lazy. Some of those work, some don't. Some men are lazy. Some of those work, some don't.
I'm happy to be a housewife.I'm happy to be called a SAHM. I'm happy with my life and the choices I've made so I don't feel the need to run other women and their choices down.

If you are happy and your family is happy that is all that should concern you. If you are wasting precious time and energy despising people for making different choices from you, that's a pretty sad state of affairs and I'd be taking long hard look at myself.

AlpinePony · 03/04/2011 11:33

Been out and realised my earlier comments could've seemed mean. I think we all as women and mothers have each and every day to make decisions from "is it time to feed yet?", "jar or home-cooked?", driving lessons or uni fund? etc., etc. We can and will be judged on each and every one of those choices, but if you're truly comfortable with the choices you make then you don't need to justify it to anyone. The label between secretary and "personal assistant" is just a lable - we know what the job is - for all of us with shiny plaques on the door, we know what we do and what we are. A Chanel dress is still a dress.

As jogon says, all any of us can do is try and achieve personal happiness and fulfilment within ourselves and try and facilitate that for our families. But when any of us try to defend our actions too strongly it's all a bit Lady MacBeth and undermines ourselves and each other.

NormanTebbit · 03/04/2011 17:45

"I agree with xenia's housewife/sahm (phone changes it to sham, interesting). it is unheard of in older generations and in the country. without wishing to fuel the flames too much further i would suggest that the outrage caused by the word housewife resulted because perhaps the defenders know that deep down all they are is a house "pootler" and perhaps not raising the messiah or running a stately home."

Are we still being feminists here?

NormanTebbit · 03/04/2011 17:51

sometimes a choice is not a choice. sometimes we have to get on with it. sometimes it doesn't help to have a group of women lucky enough to be employment, denigrating other women as prostitutes, 'pootlers' and anti feminists because they cannot aford childcare, get a job, have no family support or a combination of all.

some of us are just getting on with it.

choice is the luxury of a few

cory · 03/04/2011 18:03

What about those of us whose jobs are not primarily about competing, wanting to win, and cut and thrust? Would we still be wasted as SAHMS?

working9while5 · 03/04/2011 18:03

Ah NormanTebbit, what I was saying but so much more succinctly and powerfully put.

AlpinePony · 03/04/2011 18:47

I don't have "family support" - I live abroad. I don't earn "mega-bucks". What I do have though is a "get the fuck on with it" attitude - but that's neither here nor there really - but does possibly relate to what another poster (or two) suggested about some people are just born bone idle.

NormanTebbit · 03/04/2011 18:49

alpine

you are trolling and i can't be arsed (too bone idle)

working9while5 · 03/04/2011 18:52

Xenia, I suspect that if you lived in the world of "Upstairs, Downstairs", you would truly believe that those downstairs had either chosen their station in life, as though it were possible to amass the opportunity of the ruling classes of a society just by willing it.

I don't castigate you for your choices, and I am unhappy when I see other women question your autobiography or suggest that you are less of a mother for them.

However, I find lack of nuance and analysis in your responses disappointing. Your answer to thorny questions is contradictory: people subcontract cleaning/childcare as soon as they can afford because they are "dull" to yet what happens to subcontracting of these tasks to if all women followed your career path? Recognising that if the demand/supply changes in these businesses, the status and pay attached to them will also increase (as has already happened in the professionisation of childcare careers), surely it's clear that market forces will dictate that another level of society will then be priced out of having the opportunity for both partners to work fulltime even if they both really, really want to?

AlpinePony · 03/04/2011 19:15

Norm, have a biscuit chick.

Xenia · 03/04/2011 19:59

Most women do find a lot of that stuff boring and plenty regret giving up work. Of course I know that the average IQ is 100, the minimm wage only £13k and average wage only £20k and that most women aren't likely to earn much nor men for that matter but even so each individual one might be the one who rises to lead the Board if she got on with it instead of going home and every one who opts out makes that less likely. I supose if they are certain they are not up to much and their husbands are better and il kely to earn more then I can see why some want 24/7 childcare and housework although even then plenty prefer the variety of work too.

Jogon · 03/04/2011 20:32

Because, of course Xenia, work is never boring.
Sitting on the checkout at Asda for eight hours a day or sitting in an office are never, ever dull or monotonous.

Lots of things in life are unexciting but if you have a positive outlook you can usually handle them alongside the more exciting stuff.

Some people want/need to work others find stimulus and satisfaction in other areas.
One thing I do know for sure. There is no way on gods green earth am I getting a job just to prove some kind of obscure and unfounded political point, Xenia.
If you are good enough, you'll get the job. You don't need pootling sham housewives like me to beat a smoother path for you.
From my POV, people who hold your views actually make it harder for ALL women to make choices that suit them best. But I think you already know how nauseating your views are but you simply don't care. I would genuinely question the security of a persons own choices who spouted such bile about another's however.

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