Am I being unreasonable in hating these articles by journalists who are just showing off their families?

[ipanemagirl]

articles like this just make me want to chunder. Does her family really want to be paraded about like this? Isn't it just a bit weird?

Sorry but there seem to be all these 30 something 40 something women journalists who can't do anything except write dull lightweight pieces of family journalistic bragging.
Yuck.

I used to work with Sabine Durrant & Giles Smith & they are really nice. Yes, they're bohemian-ish middle class but they're not up themselves, honestly. As a fellow mother of boys I quite sympathised with:

"It's important to love your children for what they are, not to try and change them or wish they were more like the girls next door."

When all boys do is charge around being Power Rangers & other people's girls seem to just sit quietly & do crafts I think that's all she's saying...

(this is me after reading the weekend supplements)

I think the basic problem is the the Guardian family section is an idea that does not actually fill its allotted space.

Hence lots of crappy filler articles by people you would like to skewer.

The whiny, selfish teenagers with the tearful mother with low self esteem is my particular low point - a persistent running sore, IMHO.

Message withdrawn

ah anchovy I hate that column about the whiny teenagers!
and yet I still read it, every week, hating them, hating her

yanbu

That Living With Teenagers thing in the w/e Guardian is deeply loathsome.

My 13yo reads it, muttering, "FGS woman, they're taking the p*ss, stop being such a doormat!"

LOL lennygrrl
I agree Anchovy - flimsy section, too dependent on tragedy sometimes too.
Scampadoodle - I'm a bit ashamed of myself. I'm sure they're lovely but I wish they could be all lovely in private. Is that too much to ask?!
I love his car reviews - but that's proper (and very funny) writing.
She used to do good interviews.
I just don't want to know about their family. Call me weird!

I'm afraid I read this kind of thing and feel the urge to do a Sheriff of Nottingham impression:

"BLAH-de-BLAH-de-BLAAH!"

'It's very appealing: concentrate hard enough, you hope, and you might be able to knit your own lifestyle.' That's going straight to Private Eye for Pseuds Corner

Hello Unquiet long time no see a movie thread from yous!
But is it Wrong is the question?
Immoral to use your family?
Is it simply wrong?

Anchovy, I got hooked on that geocaching article too - I even signed up on the site to look for caches nearby! I thought it would be fun when DD2 is home for Easter, get us round and about the countryside a bit. Even went looking for a cheapo hand-held Garmin this morning

still not convinced it won't be a 5 minute wonder though...

Fairly typical Guardian article, really. Mind you, I loved the "Private Eye" parodies of Mary-Ann Sieghart's columns in the times. The doings of her daughter Brainella were particularly toe-curling.

it's lazy to use your family if you ask me

Oh I agree it's all just so much polyfilla... But if you're a journalist (& journalists need to eat, just like the rest of us) & The Grauniad says "go & do a day's knitting & give us 800 wds & we'll give you some money", well, you'd do it, wouldn't you?! At least they're not door-stepping some poor sod.

Anyway - am in complete agreement re Living with Teenagers. Am I alone in thinking that the eldest (what is he, 18, 19?) comes across as a very unpleasant individual? Nothing to do with his being a teenager.

ach they're all vile, scamp
is it really real? I read it thinking they can't all be that horrendous, surely
but then I don't have any teenagers yet

Yes as a lifelong reader of the (originally Manchester don't forget) Guardian I do find it depressing how up themselves all the London journalists are. Did it get worse when the Manchester office was closed? Lazy, lazy, lazy and smug.

Oh cat I love it when you agree with me!

Ubergeekian those Mary Ann Sigwhatever parodies are one of the few things that make me sob with laughter. What are the children's names? It is just pefection. Also Pollyfilla is right on the money too with useless husband and the nannies trying to eat and sleep occasionally so selfishly.

Scampadoodle - No not everyone would. Sorry but no!

I can't read the Living with Teenagers piece any more - too depressing - it makes me think please don't let ds turn out like that...

Am with all of you who have criticised 'Living with Teenagers'. I wonder every week how they got to the point where the kids have called their mum a 'c**t' and regularly tell her to 'fck off'. Did it start out as liberalism and descend into complete lack of control? At what point did her kids stop respecting her? It's carcrash reading. I actually feel very sorry for the mum but I want to shake her. It also reinforces this stereotype that all teenagers are selfish, self-centred little shits. Some are some naren't, just like adults.

That teenage article has become almost unreadable, it's so scrunchworthy.

'Oh, my eldest came down to breakfast and waved a knife in the air screaming you are all fucking bastards, but I think it's hard being a young person these days and I told my husband he ought to have £100 a week instead of £50, it's so frustrating having nothing to spend and he just ruffled the newspaper but I can tell he agrees'

Oh c'mon ipanemagirl! I agree that lots of it is cringeworthy & irritating, but it's not a moral crime or anything. I think, as a journalist, there are worse things you can do. [I don't mean by that that I'm a journalist: I'm not).

So all teenagers aren't like that? Phew.

Anchovy (and Frogs) spot on.

But then what do I know, I'm just a journalist. Would you like to burn me in effigy to feel better ?

Yes, Grauniad teenage column is awful. It's not the swearing so much as the lack of respect.