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.

Marina. i'm so glad it's not just me!

My new issue of Junior arrived this morning and I must confess a bit of jealousy when I saw one families gorgeous house although their children have very poncey names -Song and Otter

ssd - that was the point. It was a joke! His wife didn't like it when it said "my wife" in the header so he humorously tried to deflect that.

(Although there is an actress called Sean Young. She was in Blade Runner.)

thanks for the link - that article has really cheered me up!!

those poor boys going to school on monday - what was she thinking?!

i agreed with every word of that centre parcs article - i thought he was funny too - no im not married to him

hes right - it is exactly like a posh housing estate but with mobile homes in it

god I hate that junior one as well
the child who is wearing the 'quirky' hat and another whose jumper is 'endearingly' too big for her

how can such little children look so annoying and pretentious?

the dad column in junior makes me wince as well

in fact I hate the whole fucking magazine which is why I don't buy it any more

Me too, though I have occasionly bought it since deciding I hate it, then I remember again. Some of the articles are insufferably smug, and as for the fashion shoots.

the adverts are eye popping as well
especially the fashion ones, as you say

I have the whole afternoon to laze around and actually read the guardian today - and the observer tomorrow morning as DS is away on a sleepover.

Today;s family supplement is unreadable. TWO articles which are nothing more than trailers fro full-length books, one by the woman in the swearing teenagers column, a whole page of stuff about how sweet they were when they were little and how upsetting it is that they didn't turn out in the mould she had so carefully constructed fro them...and a piece by a perfectly healthy woman who believed that the stress of flying to be with her dying father would endanger her baby and so has written an entire book about it to justify her choice / assugae her guilt.

I certainly don't blame 'journalists' en masse - goodness the readers lap it up, and the publications get fatter and more numerous. It's telling me a lot about our obsession with ourselves, lives, how we have to see it all reflected in the media...I just haven't quite worked out what it's telling me, yet.

Desiderata asked a question last week 'when did the middle classes become so rampant?', and i have been pondering that. Thatcher (no society only families and individuals), a sense of entitleent around the me me me (and my American Express cats) generation, AND a sense that everything must be talked about, analysed, interpreted into an ironic or insighhtful comment. Which is where this constant self-erferential writing and reading comes in.

Perhaps.

I'm still thinking about it all.

Those names!

WTF.

And I thought Americans were bad. The apple didn't fall very far from the tree in that respect.

American express card, of course.

Franny, I came perilously close to just removing Junior from its shrink-wrap and dropping the whole half-stone of glossy materialist wankery straight in the bin this morning
I think it is the "Perfect (£££££££ and planet-frying) Holidays" supplement coupled with the cover promise of 15 fun and frivolous things your child can do to help the environment (maybe not be jetted off to the Maldives ffs) that brought me close to cracking.
I write to them every now and again about the YHA and trying an article on genuinely inexpensive and interesting short-haul destinations. I expect they think I am a nutter

PMSL at American Express Cat
Although if it existed I am sure the Guardian Family pages would do it full barftastic justice
Might it be a Maine Coon? The perfect chance to blow a small country's GDP on a huge hairy cat that gets held to ransom within a month...

I did do that the last 2 months Marina
I took out that ruddy cheap subscription offer and then when I went to cancel it the bank screwed up royally, so I actually PAID for the last 3 months
very annoying

oh I quite miss Junior
I think mumsnet kept it going at one point - reread a load of the Pregnancy and Baby ones whilst I was pregnant with DS and saw letters from moondog, chonky, articles by mumsnetters, quotes from musmnetters in articles...

the fashion shoots are hilarious

we did get an Australian version here (eye wateringly pricy and without quite the same level of smuggery that the UK does so very well) but it appears to have been rebranded and is missing that je ne sais quoi

Blu, I'm glad you mentioned the article by that woman about not flying to SA to be with her dying dad. I thought maybe it was just me! When I was in my first trimester, I was supposed to go on a business trip to Japan and cancelled it, but no power on earth would have stopped me flying to see my dad if he was on his way out. I found her self-justification utterly bizarre.

Blu and Bluestocking, I am so glad I am not the only one to feel that way about that feature today. I was BOILING with rage by the time I finished it. Because guess what, I was in the exact same dilemma when pregnant with DD2, Dad was dying and an 11-hour plane journey away. But you know what, it was NOT a dilemma, because it didn't even cross my mind that my pregnancy was a reason not to go and see my beloved Dad one last time. I was too full of terror that he might not hang on until I got there. Which he did, for a few hours, and I was so pleased and grateful that I had that time. He didn't even know I was pregnant, and I don't know if he heard me or not but at least I was able to tell him.
I'm crying now even though it happened eight years ago, but the thought of not flying to be with your Dad because of some imagined stress on a perfectly normal healthy pregnancy - it is selfish beyond belief.

Blu and Bluestocking, I am so glad I am not the only one to feel that way about that feature today. I was BOILING with rage by the time I finished it. Because guess what, I was in the exact same dilemma when pregnant with DD2, Dad was dying and an 11-hour plane journey away. But you know what, it was NOT a dilemma, because it didn't even cross my mind that my pregnancy was a reason not to go and see my beloved Dad one last time. I was too full of terror that he might not hang on until I got there. Which he did, for a few hours, and I was so pleased and grateful that I had that time. He didn't even know I was pregnant, and I don't know if he heard me or not but at least I was able to tell him.
I'm crying now even though it happened eight years ago, but the thought of not flying to be with your Dad because of some imagined stress on a perfectly normal healthy pregnancy - it is selfish beyond belief.

So mad I posted twice

And yesterday the "Living with Teenagers"

"Having babies is the most transforming thing. It changes everything - every idea, person, shape or colour. Everything is different from that moment, and you never get your old self back. The funny thing is, you don't even want to. All you can think of is making things OK for your child.
.....................
And that's it, that's all that matters. My life has been a million times bigger, better, richer and more special for having you three. You're such a gift, such a blessing, my biggest and best adventure. Nothing has made me feel so alive as being your mother, and I cannot thank you enough for this."

I hate this kind of attitude that parents are the only people with access to the real meaning of life, true happiness etc. 'A million times BIGGER,BETTER, RICHER"?
How insufferably smug is that? Loads of people who don't have children have access to enormous joy, wonder, pleasure, depth. The arrogance of it!

Yeah, but she isn't saying that is she, not denying that people without kids don't have joy, wonder, pleasure and depth etc - just that it's bigger, better and richer after you have kids - and it is. It also brings with it bigger fear and terror though.

I don't think it's smug at all. I think the family should be respected more, not less. Becoming a parent does make you a better person, IMHO.

Well I think it's presumptious and slightly condescending.
Most of us may feel like this but many of us might have the grace not to trumpet it at those who can't or don't have children.
How can she now what her experience would have been had she not had children at all? That's impossible therefore it's presumptious to assume how much better it is! That may be her opinion but that doesn't make it a universal truth as it is presented!

Wasn't her 'Letter' so self-regarding?
"We were such perfect parents" basically?
Oh heave!
[vomit emoticon]