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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder if there is anything Shona Sibary wouldn't do for some cash?

83 replies

northernlurker · 30/10/2014 08:14

Seriously - has she no shame, no personal boundaries about what she should and shouldn't put out there? Hmm

Sorry Daily Mail link here

Basically it's her supposedly tracking down some of her many au pairs and asking what they think of her.
The answers aren't flattering.

OP posts:
CatKisser · 30/10/2014 08:16

She's excruciating, isn't she? I think I almost prefer Samantha Brick, who at least gives me a chuckle.

skylark2 · 30/10/2014 08:27

Who the heck is Shona Sibary? Who the heck is Samantha Brick?

If you're not interested in what they do, don't read about them. If you're going to hang on their every action, don't be surprised when they try to make those actions more "interesting" so the attention doesn't fade.

ILovePud · 30/10/2014 08:28

Where does the Daily Mail find these women? I find them even more excruciating than the rest of the alarmist drivel featured. Does anyone remember Lynda Lee Potter?

Original poster
northernlurker · 30/10/2014 08:29

I have a worrying suspicion that Shona thinks she comes across as warm and amusing. She's wrong there.

If you're reading this Shona - PLEASE get another job.

OP posts:
OraProNobis · 30/10/2014 08:31

Oh God! Lynda Lee Potter - what a ghastly ghastly individual she was but you could never say she hadn't had her calling and responded to it! She was absolutely doing the job she was born to.

hackmum · 30/10/2014 08:33

The article made me wince. All the au pairs told the same tale: of being overworked, used as cheap manual labour, spoilt, over-indulged children and maternal neglect. If it was just one, you could put it down to sour grapes.

I was open-mouthed at the parents going on holiday for a week and leaving their three-month old daughter and older sibling in the care of an 18-year old au pair. Why would you do that?

CuttedUpPear · 30/10/2014 08:33

Why do people keep posting DM links then apologising for doing so?
You are doing exactly what they want you to.
Clicking on their misogynistic claptrap and bringing them advertising revenue. Angry

Original poster
northernlurker · 30/10/2014 08:34

Lynda didn't exploit her own life though did she? I seem to remember it was mostly about other people - and the origin of Private Eye's Glenda Slagg? Whereas Shona etc belong firmly to the mummy for old rope tradition.

OP posts:
VivaLeBeaver · 30/10/2014 08:35

I've just been readi g this with my mouth open and came racing onto MN to see if someone had started a thread!

Jesus. I always suspected from previous articles her kids were badly behaved and this confirms it. Filling a water pistol with piss and squirting it at the au pair!!!

All the au pairs say what a bad mother she is, doesn't want to spend time with the kids, doesn't discipline them. Then the fact she's treated all the au pairs like shit. £100 a week for ten hours a day! Making them do all the housework.

She must be so thick skinned to allow this to be published. Either that or desperate for money/publicity.

She's vile. Those kids will really dislike her if they don't already.

VivaLeBeaver · 30/10/2014 08:36

It might be misogynistic claptrap but she's written the article herself so I don't see that she can complain about it.

londonrach · 30/10/2014 08:37

Just read the article and was shocked. Her ds throwing wee on her new au pair. Shocked. Those poor children and au pairs.

19lottie82 · 30/10/2014 08:40

Did anyone see the article last month about how gorgeous she thought her tow, not ugly, but average looking daughters (13&15) were? They were sat pictured in full slap and mini skirts while she laughed about how the 13 year old flirted with the man who ran the Chinese take away, for free spring rolls....WTAF????

ChickenMe · 30/10/2014 08:40

Foolish woman and her facial expressions...so annoying. Id happily shoot her with a urine-filled water pistol.

Original poster
northernlurker · 30/10/2014 08:42

Writing to outrage I can understand but involving and using your kids in that is totally mysterious to me.

OP posts:
ILovePud · 30/10/2014 08:43

Yes NorthernLurker Lynda Lee Potter was a different sort of vile as she thought she knew exactly what other people were thinking, I remember one piece where she said that Kate Winslett must be very unhappy being so chubby and that all her friends must be saying the same behind her back. I think Liz Jones is the missing link to the current shower of shit.

cloggal · 30/10/2014 08:44

YANBU.

AgentProvocateur · 30/10/2014 08:45

She's an attention-whore of the worst kind. Why publicise your huge failings and dysfunctional family for all to see? Hope she got paid well - her kids' therapy bill won't be cheap

hackmum · 30/10/2014 08:49

"Filling a water pistol with piss and squirting it at the au pair!!!"

Yes, that was a particularly horrible detail. I would be mortified if my child did anything like that.

WhereHas1999DissappearedToo · 30/10/2014 08:51

She basically exploited those Au pairs. Ghastly woman.

GilbertBlytheWouldGetBit · 30/10/2014 10:37

Fucking hell. I am agog. She really has no shame. Cheeky article title though, it's not what au pairs think of British mothers, it's what they think of Shona Sibary. Her husband can't be any great shakes as a parent either.

SpringBreaker · 30/10/2014 10:44

"did anyone see the article last month about how gorgeous she thought her tow, not ugly, but average looking daughters (13&15) were"

I just read that and to be fair, her daughters are very pretty and that was one of her less offensive articles. Generally she is a self obsessed lying twat who I find very irritating. Every article she gets paid to write contradicts the last one and I am sure she must bribe her kids and her husband to allow her to write the utter drivel about them that normally puts her in the light of being a complete arsehole.

WorraLiberty · 30/10/2014 10:46

I've never heard of her but I was surprised the article mentioned she had a husband. I thought she was a single Mum from the little bit I read.

LilyPotter · 30/10/2014 11:02

Didn't she once write an article saying how she hated having to sleep with her husband?
I also thought they were nearly homeless, after making a much-regretted decision to sell their house, so they were renting and couldn't afford to get back on the property ladder. But this article mentions a large farm in Devon.
So, writing shit articles for the DM must pay well.

Found it funny that two of these au pairs who were pretty rude about her were ones who she presumably thought were successes and liked her!

minibmw2010 · 30/10/2014 11:15

I'd never heard of her before, but bloody hell she comes across as a really self-absorbed person, clearly very impressed with herself. Why have 5 children if you don't want to do anything with them, take care of them even slightly yourself? I understand that people need to work, but she clearly wanted as little to do with them as possible. I love how despite every negative comment left by the Au Pairs she makes it sound like it's their fault actually ....

Rollontome · 30/10/2014 11:18

She seems very proud of the fact that she is a terrible mother with horribly behaved, disrespectful children. I think she enjoys the power she has over these kids, she likes the fact that she pays them peanuts for ridiculous hours, she imagines they're her own personal slaves.

What a nasty, messed up woman and now four kids who are being raised with her despicable values.