To have no sympathy for a family that overstretch themselves to pay school fees?

[mrsruffallo]

Why not just go to state school?
here

Lisaro, I can't see how it isn't emotional abuse. It's a serious invasion of their privacy and they can't give informed consent. This is a whole different league to Liz Jones.

Like Ljubljana, I don't think she is quite mentally well. Boundaries all over the place

Liz Jones. Stoopid ipad

I agree, and that is partly why I am so upset about the attacks on her physical appearance - I read her article about growing up ugly, like Liz Jones she seems to have grown up with serious issues about her body image and not being considered attractive.

I wonder if this now explains or has contributed to this weird desire to have every last little detail of your private life become the subject of an article which 99% of people ate going to laugh at? Is it that bad attention is at least better than no attention?

spero you said; It's a serious invasion of their privacy and they can't give informed consent. Is that not emotional abuse? How would you feel if it was you, and for some reason you couldn't stop it or give informed consent?

I agreed it is emotional abuse.

In fact, it is creeping into significant harm territory. I think she needs to be careful.

Duh sorry Spero I stupidly read your isn't as is. I've also been cooking a large meal and baking, which let's just say isn't one of my strong points - the meal will be lovely, the cakes.............no comment.

spero sorry if I made it sound like that. I think we all look at things from our own perspective (of course we do) and in my view I would say that the vast majority of posters have not commented about Shona's physical appearance. Where they have I agree it is unkind and I can well understand the points that you have made.

I am sorry for using double negative, I hate it if anyone else does it, it's a recipe for confusion.

Cherries, I did think I was probably being over sensitive about your post and I do agree, most people have gone for the legitimate targets. I suppose it is the way of the world, you notice the small amount of nasty stuff more than the vast amount of good stuff.

I just feel so sorry for her. Growing up being constantly bullied for being ugly must be very hard. I don't think I had it that bad. Is it any wonder she is not now a poster girl for healthy relationships and appropriate emotional boundaries?

Yes I know what you mean spero. I was once taught not to "look at the black dot on the white page" meaning that if you have had a bad day you may be focussing on the one bad thing that happened and not acknowleding all the good things that happen. Like a little white dot on a big white page! Easier said than done though.

Bullying is so awful and our society is mixed up. On the one hand there is the message "it's what is inside that counts" and on the other hand we judge so readily by appearance. It is very wrong I agree.

AllPastYears - Well I hope that the private Sibareducation the kids are getting is more productive than the one Shona Sibary got!

I too thought you had coined a new term - Sibareducation - and it made me laugh so much I have tears...

Oh I do love her twaddle, it leaves me feeling all warm and like a competent parent.

spero I get what you mean about being bullied as a child and the way it makes you feel and behave. But we all grow up though, don't we? And at some stage we must decide that we must break the cycle and stop inflicting it on others or be condemned ourselves?

I think the comments about her physical appearance were unfair. However, I feel the comments on her ridiculous and hurtful behaviour towards her family and others were justified.

As those comments far outweighed the ones about her appearance your pity for her is misplaced.

Let's see what she comes up with in her next piece. I'll bet my twee house on it being utterly self-pitying and self-absorbed.

Plays the world's smallest violin

No sympathy for them, based on the fact they are blatantly asking for it by speaking to the media. Quote: 'now we have nothing to our name' - er yeah, nothing apart from a rented house and 4 healthy kids...

I have a one bedroom flat and no babies. I whinge about it a lot on MN, but you won't catch me going crying to the newspapers!!

To be able to afford over £48,000 in rent, school fees and housekeeper costs, not to mention a fancy people-carrier for the housekeeper to take the little darlings to their snooty schools/nursery, must take a household income in the top 10% bracket.

Why is she moaning? It's poor money management and snobbery thats to blame for their situation. If you buy a house on an interest-free mortgage you are to all purposes renting, so they never really "owned" the original one anyway!

Oh come on mumsnet she isnt real, its a character!

Read her articles- from one to another she claims to have grown up in West Sussex, later in Australia and then her facebook pages links to a school in America...

Also some mention of Fiji in another article.

Planted by the DM for more publicity I imagine. Very clever of them!

well spotted porny

I like reading DM online for the comedy factor. I love how it has become so 'popular', but the main reason it gets loads of site views is people linking to stories and going hahaha look at this shite

Yes, all made up for the readers' delectation, when they run out of "Suri Cruise dressed in high heels throws a tantrum" news.

...sorry I meant interest only mortgage

oooh, she's written some more shite about her sex life with Keith but I can't be arsed to read it!

Note to self must stop wasting time reading the DM website!

So the children are made up too? Child actors?

I'm betting that it won't be long before we are treated to End Of A Marriage, why Poor Keith Left Shona. then Diary Of A Single Parent Clinging To Delusions Of Being Posh, then Yes They Are Still At Private School, and finally Life With A Narcissist, Why Florence Cut Her Mother Out Of Her Life

planet I was about to say the same thing!

And porny I had noticed that - do we think some poetic license is at work here?

I'll go against the grain here for this one and say that I do have some sympathy for both her and her family. Not for her desires or the style in which she thinks her family should live, but in that something feels a little bit off to me to have a laugh at them and say 'serve you right'. Their problems were admittedly self-inflicted and,yes, she does seem to have delusions of grandeur in many of her articles but she strikes me as a nice person and I'm sorry to see her feeling so low. That said, they need to move out of the 2000 pound a month place to something cheaper (even a two bedroom flat), put the children in a far less tony private school or state, knuckle down and start saving again.

As to her looks, I'm not sure how they are at all relevant but, to me, she has a perfectly nice, very English 'horsey' type face. Not a magazine type beauty for sure but I don't think she is as ugly as sin.

How can you have someone who complains about money but still lives well above their means?!

I would also like to live in a nice big house where the children can have their own rooms, all the activity and lessons they want, nice big car, holidays in the sun etc etc but I can't afford it so I don't.

To then moan about it all do publicly and talk about how soul destroying it is, well thy just takes the biscuit. What about the families out there who don't have anything fancy, have no luxuries, work damn hard and still struggle to make ends meet.

I agree that making comments about her appearance are not on and out of order.

Have sympathy that should say!

I can have sympathy for them partly because she is so spectacularly out of touch with the real world. I know what sort of background produces that mentality, having grown up in ityself, and the effect when the bubble pops is shattering. These are still people whose mentality is stuck in the times of the Raj, that everything will sort itself out in the wash and as long as the connections are kept up, that's all that matters ( hence her great reluctance to pull her girls out of the private school which is the one card for social ascension that she thinks she has). Mind you, these are the same sort of people who think being 'clever' is a bit sneaky and underhanded. So of course all the problems are self inflicted ( how could you think that a house
earns you money?) I am in no way saying that all this is somebody else's fault (GFC etc) when I say that I feel some sympathy - just that they have made some bad decisions and unfortunately now have to deal with the consequences of those. It's not a nice position for them to be in and you can still feel a bit bad for someone even if they have brought about those problems.