to find the Guardian article "The Dummy Mummy Decade" offensive?

[PenguinProject]

See here. Then again, perhaps I should be polishing my bugaboo rather than reading the Guardian...

Ooo mrs henry are you going to play 'merry hell' an old expression that came to mind LOL

Haha!

I'll be out this evening at the MN book launch but will come back to this thread with some intelligent thought on your suggestions.

I'm in.

I will cool down, resist the urge to shout 'saddos!' at the Guardian hacks and attempt to think up a proper rebuttal of this fecking stoopid article.

go mrs henry.. am using up all my energy at present on another illinformed set of guardian articles

Haven't read all the posts admittedly, but that whole observer woman monthly is such a load of patronising drivel I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has.

Haven't read all the posts admittedly, but that whole observer woman monthly is such a load of patronising drivel I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has.

And it's not just me...

www.spittingmadwoman.blogspot.com/

Brilliant idea to take the best views in this thread and respond to the Observer with them. Was planning to write myself but joint official response would be better.

Excellent idea to sum it all up and send to The Observer. I've already written but you lot say it all much better!

C' on ladies to all who have posted on this thread - do you want to be part of Guardian Polly n Co repsonse?

Thing is how will we coorindate this repsonse?

Yes Gilly - the point about hypocracy and contradiction within the article needs to be pointed out.

Yeah I agree her friends must be realing

Some parents do get boring about this issue but most of us continue to work, have some hobbies and have rounded lives and have things to talk about which are not children all the time particularly if we're talking to those who are lucky enough or unfortunate enough to be childfree.

It does require some understanding. Those who ahve never had a child often simply are not aware of the impact it has on those of us who do and those with forget what can be the concerns of those without children.

(I have found some housewives very dull and I took 2 weeks off work to have my 5 children so I never became just centred on home etc but that notwithstanding there is nothing as important in my life as my relatinoships with, my pregnancies of and my breastfeeding of my children. When you have a child men and women bond with it. Male hormones even change when their wife is pregnant. We are designed tob e absorbed by and to fall in love with it. It's a beautiful process which ensure we don't kill our young but instead nurture them so of course there is always an element of obssession with a new baby even if you're back at work in a couple of week as I was. it's hared to explain that process to someone who has never had a child.

yes big eyes - and not sure what best way is to co ordinate - maybe pick out a couple of the key points that are coming out here namely its lazy journalism, hardly smacks of empathy (eg how can you sympathise with your ivf friends with this attitude and making the comment about rachida dati etc) and the biggest one of all - is that there are bores/obsessives about lots of things (whatever it is -your job, love life, weight etc etc) but don't vilify them.

Xenia - v good point indeed about the bonding and nurturing.

However, turning this into a semi-hidden dig at SAHMs doesn't really embrace the point of the thread!

I'll keep reading and reviewing - mrsmerryhenry will be back from book launch to help too

...just as long as the Observer doesn't try and sue us!

Hello! I'm back from book launch and have finished clearing up DS's vomit from every surface of the bathroom!

Right, I think I've been inspired, but you may disagree. However I shan't share my idea yet as it's occured to me (having spent this evening with many a hack) that since journos are constantly watching MN for ideas it's probably best not to plan our killer riposte in the open, riiiiiight??

So I'm happy to ask MN if they could temporarily create a secret hiding place a la Old MNers (what were they called again? Old Moosters or something?) purely for the purposes of us creating this article. Anyone can contribute, as long as they're a real MNer. We will then plan our attack underground. We'll need to find out about the Observer Woman's publishing deadlines for the next issue; I reckon we've got an absolute maximum of 2 weeks from publication of the last issue, if that.

Whaddya say?

Sue us? Well we will have to check this out first, but they have a complaints procedure that individuals can persue, and it is in public domain - she just a bar fly lush that has run out of any decent arguments or time to research. I am sorry ladies still ravin mad bout her bloody shite

Don't get mad. Get even.

I read it. It's just a columnist filling her space. Why is her opinion so offensive? I ahve a lot of childless friends who are also good friends with my children but when we (the grown-ups) are out together we talk about other stuff. I've met boring mothers who seem to have nothing else to discuss too. If I were scratching about for something to say to meet my deadline and couldn't come up with anything world shattering I might allow a party bore to take up more of my time than she should have done and drone on about it. We all have bees in bonnets about something. Sounds like most of you have just let another one in.

Yes I know mrs M-H, its my wine night am afraid

but poitn about contradiction and hypocracy was worth flesshing out.

Get this secret hidey thing sorted - how do you do that? Will it have a camp fire ? LOL

NJB I'm with you (almost), except that I can't see why mums should get a special mention as being party bores. It's a bit like an employer saying parents make worse employees because of time off for kids, whilst ignoring all the frequent smokers taking ciggy breaks every hour of every day; i.e. easy target.

What annoys me about what sycamoretree aptly calls the "hey, my friend did this, my mate said that school of journalism" is that they try to pretend it is part of some serious social change they have observed. Apparently, this one says, parents talking in public has only happened since the birth of Brooklyn Beckham. Rrrrrrright. About the time Rachey-wachey started writing for the papers, would that be?...

My god Xenia you are amazing. I never realised you had five children in two weeks. I think there is probably a feature in there - shall we email Rachel Cooke?