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?

Wow, what a well reasoned arguement to a sensitive topic.

'Grieving your dead child fucking breaks you.'

Shattered. Like a glass vase on the pavement. Completely and utterly decimates you.

I wish my eldest son was celebrating his 20th birthday this month. I wish he was upstairs playing minecraft. I wish he was away at university preparing for life ahead of him. I wish I could reminisce with him about his younger years, our arguments, his favourite meals. I can't because he died aged 18. That is bereavement. Never seeing him again. Never talking to him again. Never hearing his voice. Never see him grow up, get married, have kids. Even looking back to happy healthy times is beyond painful because he is not here.

I have another son. Everything he does is wonderful. And painful because he is now older than my first child got to be. Everything he does my other child never got the chance.

I am lost, broken, exhausted, sad - that is bereavement for a child.

Just read her tweets, and she's hiding behind the idea that people have misunderstood her article... Rather than understanding it perfectly well, but still finding the analogy to be hideously insensitive and, well, just wrong too.

MNHQ. Shame on you.

Did you not actually fracking read that piece before you tweeted your mate's work?

You might want to reconsider that by parents for parents byline, as I don't see how promoting that article on MN serves bereaved parents at all. Or do you and Liz think they're not parents?

MN has promoted Mumsnetters' Wooly Hugs and agreed that it shows MN at its best. And then you tweet that?

I am seriously considering deregging and blocking MN from my devices, and I am not even a bereaved parent. I cannot fathom the rage and nausea other readers who've lost children must feel to read such navelgazing self-pity from a woman with all her children living.

Heartfelt hugs to all those, like me, missing a child.

I'm pretty sure I didn't misunderstand the bit here she describes her children as gone and dead!

I get its hard when kids grow up, move on, don't need you so much anymore. It must be emotional and hard and upsetting. It is NOT bereavement.

I really and truly hope that she never has to know what the difference feels like.

(((minmooch)))

"Sorry if it offended anyone"

Not, "Sorry I upset people. Sorry I chose my words thoughtlessly. Sorry I was too busy focusing on my feelings to think about anyone else's."

Not, in other words, sorry.

Still, I bet she's loving the clickbait.

The woman is moronic, the comparison is completely and utterly ridiculous and insensitive. I'm so sorry to everyone that has had to go through losing a child, to have to hear and read this sort of rot must be very hard.

I don't like people going after other folk on twitter usually

it makes me v uncomfortable

but the article was awful for all the reasons given above, and her 'apology' (sorrynotsorry) was, if anything, worse

expat

it can be upsetting when your kids get old. I know this.

but what you do then, in the old fashioned way, is get the fuck over yourself and count your blessings

not write a column about it, ffs

I don't bother with Twitter. Maybe I should.

The pain of child loss is actually beyond description, although some have come as close as is probably possible.

Gosh. I'm actually really glad I posted about this. i hope the editors are paying attention too.

muddha I don't think anyone has 'gone after her' on Twitter. As far I can see, people have just been saying they found her article in poor taste. It's what used to be known as 'criticism' and 'feedback'.

Still, I bet she's loving the clickbait.

Well, I hope MNHQ are considering very carefully, regarding that angle. Advertising revenue is important to MN, innit, and lots of people never came back after the password debacle, as it is.

When lots of readers 'misunderstand' your writing- it suggests there's something wrong with the writing not the readers...

I read this article at the weekend and my first thought was "god, what a drama llama".

But then it sank in the comparison she was actually making. It's really, really appallingly self absorbed to think you can make that comparison. Self absorbed to the degree that you think that your minor wistful moments of sadness when your kids don't kiss you goodbye at the gate can be used in the same sentence as the death of a child.

And I have never been through it.

Liz, we didn't misunderstand you. Your turn of phrase wasn't misunderstood. It was wrong. You could make your point another way, a way which didn't shit all over bereaved parents from a great height. "Those children are gone now. Transformed beyond recognition into the hulking teenager eating an entire loaf of bread in a single sitting. Disappeared into the photos and the anguished diary entries from the days when all he would eat was spaghetti hoops". I'm not a writer, I get that. But see, it is possible without the arrogance of using death as your metaphor.

OP, I am team YOU on this one

I fucking hate it when people cant have the wisdom to realise they have messed up, and have used a turn of phrase to insult grieving parents

Maybe I hang out here too much but I would never DREAM of saying that phrase.

I will leave it at that, as anything else will get me accused or being a troll

LEARN SOME SENSITIVITY AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE LIZ

BITCH

Fuck me. I've just been blocked by Liz on Twitter. I wasn't even rude, let alone abusive!

i hope the editors are paying attention too

I'd hope that, too

but I fear that the Family section in the graun is all about the clicks

That says it all doesn't it wibblies, she knows she's wrong but she doesn't actually want to face that she may have upset people.

Yeah but were you 'spitting venom' Wibblies?

She really is something else. Have MNHQ even noticed yet?

wibbles she likely blocked you because she doesn't want to face just how awful she has been.

Unfortunately the Guardian will do absolutely bugger all, as it looks like MN is also doing.