Use of child death as an analogy for sense of loss should be punishable by wearing a dimwit hat for ever more

[wibblies]

Fucking Liz Fraser in the weekend guardian is the latest in a long line of journalists and writers who seem to think this is ok.

Here's a sample of what she has to say in her article about her sense of loss in watching her children grow from primary age into teenagers:

"When the joy goes - and it does, because life moves on and you can’t play peek-a-boo with a 12-year-old who wants to play Minecraft with his similarly zit-infested mates – it feels like bereavement."

"Those young children are dead now. They are gone."

"The bereavement is long, slow and refreshed every day."

Just so you know, Liz Fraser, watching a child grow up as it gets older is really not anything like not watching a child grow up because the child is dead. I know this, because I've tried them both.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who notices this shit? Please tell me you recognise that it's not the fucking same at all? That it's not even a tiny bit similar and that it's crass in the extreme to suggest it?

Juggling and Muddha

I agree. It was a ridiculous article from start to finish. All that black and white thinking. Toddlerhood was Hell. Teens are Awful and Rude.

I find that level of ignorance and insensitivity unforgivable.

another thing: do these people not know- their kids can READ? And so can their friends?

I wondered how my dcs (12-18) would react to me publishing a piece like this, with an identifiable pic of me looking all sad in their bedrooms assuming I could get through the door and wade through the detritus saying how much I missed their little selves/how dreadful they were now

they would go bananas

(at least Julie Myerson- also in the Family section of the Graun- used to moan about her teens anonymously. And a bit more elegantly- till she got busted, that is)

Muddha

They probably tell their children that they are 'sorry if you were offended'

"I think she's being really disingenuous on Twitter. Not mentioning at all why people are offended or the fact that some of the people referred to as "trolls" "spitting venom" are actually bereaved parents talking about how upsetting they find her comparison."

This.
Exactly.
She is refusing to own her mistake and instead keeps going on about "humour" and "trolls".
It's just so immature.
Her replies are far worse than the article.

She's now acknowledged on Twitter, that "having read and reread the article" she can see that it was, as someone else describes it, "a poor choice of words written by someone blissfully unaware of the pain". It "should have been edited", and she "feels awful".

But that's all in conversation with a fellow mumsnet blogger (and bereaved parent). Her public feed is still all about the "trolling", and how awful mumsnetters are.

narp

I really do hope that she has a bit more going on under the surface- and is doing a sorrynotsorry while thinking fuckit WHY did I say that?? -and won't do it again

I'd be mortified

Cor. Ironic. Usually journalists complain when things have been added to their copy, not when offensive bits have somehow failed to be edited out by an unseen hand...

If she'd only apologised properly from the start - and offered her 'warm, strong hugs' to those bereaved mothers who expressed pain and hurt rather than saving them for the first bereaved mother who expressed sympathy for her, then this whole thing could have developed really differently.

Mmmm wondering what her future dils will make of her? I forsee posts.

Oh ok. Now she can fuck the fuck right off:

"If Arthur Miller had posted on Mumsnet he'd've been tolled for days. DO YOU KNOW HOW OFFENSIVE THAT IS TO PEOPLE WHOSE SALESMEN HAVE DIED??"

Oh, now she's genuinely taking the piss out of bereaved parents.

Now THAT'S beyond the fucking pale.

Where did that Arthur Miller thingie come from?

Yes multivac and she is still blocking and deleting where she see's fit.

that's just awful

really awful

...is she trying to get some lolz out of this?

fuckinell

I tweeted her fairly mildly imo to say the following:

'@lizfraser1 Can you not imagine what losing a child must be like? You're really so unintelligent you think a child growing up is comparable?'

and I've been blocked as well

I can't believe all the creeps who are sucking up to her on Twitter - a lot of men, noticeably. She is an absolutely self-obsessed, smug t**t and it depresses me that she is so up her own arse that she can't even see how her article was so offensive to so many people

She just gets worse and worse...

meditrina
From her twitter feed.

God. I've just read her twitter feed.

It's not the use of the word mourning. I mean, if someone said "my feet spread when I was pregnant and I mourn the loss of my lovely designer shoes that I can't afford to replace". Well it's a tad dramatic but meh.

It's using that as a major motif for an article about kids growing up with a kicker of a line about how those children "are dead".

Can she really not see the difference?

That is shocking in its callousness.

Yes. I saw the Arthur Miller thing as well.

Where did that Arthur Miller thingie come from?

She's referring to Death Of A Salesman. Saying that Mumsnetters would have been trolling him over the choice of title and saying "DO YOU KNOW HOW OFFENSIVE THAT IS TO PEOPLE WHOSE SALESMEN HAVE DIED??""

It's really unfunny.

Libraries
Of course she can see the difference. That's why, when talking to the mumsnet blogger who's son died, she is all about how she "feels awful" and "it should have been edited".

For her fans who haven't read the piece, it's all about being contacted by someone who "hopes one of her children dies, so she knows what it's like." Obviously, that is a vile thing to have happened. If it did. But if it did, it has nothing to do with the distress being expressed via this thread, and it's hateful to pretend it does.