By LeQueen on Tue 10-Feb-09 17:23:11 'Some women want to feel fresh and look groomed, so willingly sacrifice an extra half hour in bed in the morning. And, some women aren't bothered about their personal appearance, and prefer to sit and enjoy 2 extra cups of tea.'
LeQueen I don't think it is a simple matter of the extremes of your post above. I thought that many of the posters were giving their tips on how they manage to look groomed without having to necessarily get up earlier in the morning - I count myself as someone who, for the most part, is pretty well groomed - I need to be for the days I work, and it makes me feel better on the days that I don't work. However, I don't get out of bed earlier to do it, I just try to make better use of the time I have. I think there have been some fantastic tips on this thread, and I know that I will be using some of them from now on. (And I'm still hoping Joecool lives near me .)
However, life has got much easier for me as my DC have got a bit older (approaching 2 & 4), and I have started to recover from those zombie filled early months! But I still remember what it was like, and I wouldn't judge anyone who finds it difficult to make time for themselves.
My comment about competitive mothers was not in relation to those who are well groomed (as I said, I try to turn out pretty well myself ) - it was in relation to the competitive tone of some of the posts, for example:
'i had a home birth with no painkillers or anything, gave birth at 2.30 am and when the midwife came back to see us the next afternoon, my house was clean, i was showered and groomed and wearing clothes and mumsnetting while breast feeding DD.'
'the rest of you out there can stop with excuses... pull your heads out of your asses and get organized. and who in their right mind makes lunches in the morning.'
'ps. i have a very demanding 2 month old and manage to keep myself and house clean on top of having sex a few times a week too.'
'i still stand by my belief that for the most part, laziness, lack of time management and disorganization is the real reason most mothers develop self-proclaimed martyrdom and start whining about not finding 20 minutes for grooming and condemning those of us who do.'
'i wouldn't attempt doing my nails when the toddlers were up... that's bad time management.'
'i was only making a point that even after birth, i still took a shower and did my dishes when DD was asleep because i was fully capable of doing so (i know not everyone can) and i wasn't about to sit around moaning about having just given birth and not being able to do it. likewise with my everyday. i'm not going to sit around and moan that because i have kids, i no longer have time for myself because that is a crock of shit.'
'i wasn't one to whine about. just got on with it.'
Chefswife: If you are going to try to be facetious, it would probably be better if you could differentiate between the use of capitals and uppercase. Capital letters are defined as being the large leading letters used to begin sentences and names etc. Uppercase refers to the exclusive use of capital letters in type, and derives from the cases (which were kept on the upper level) which print setters used to keep their capital letters in.