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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

330 replies

PenguinProject · 08/02/2009 18:18

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

OP posts:
Niecie · 08/02/2009 18:43

I am sure there are such mothers around (although I have never met them) but equally there are very boring women who rant on about how hard done by that nobody respects their decision to not have children (not met any of them either). Either extreme of the debate accounts for a very tiny proportion of women.

My childless friends and I respect each other's decisions - it is a shame the journo's friends don't command the same respect from her.

Silly article - as Hassled says, provacative on purpose.

beanieb · 08/02/2009 18:46

woops, sorry - didn't see this and just started a thread

Quattrocento · 08/02/2009 18:47

There is something quite scarey about having children and giving up the freedom to roam and explore. It is tiring and sometimes soul-destroying always having to put other people's needs ahead of one's own.

But she didn't deal at all with the fact that many mothers can and do continue to have interesting careers. She didn't deal at all with the fact that many mothers do not lose the habit of reading.

I wonder why that is? Could it be that those points just didn't fit in with her theory? Could it be, in fact, that the theory is bollocks?

violethill · 08/02/2009 18:51

I agree Quattro. I certainly didn't lose the ability to think, read or go out to work just because I had children. Neither did my husband.

ScottishMummy · 08/02/2009 19:02

how tiresome another media generated sterotype another stick to beat mums with.dull article

ah,of course she is surrounded by associates who haven't betrayed the sisterhood by getting up the nelly duff

the rest of us dullards have let everyone down

anyhoo,i have to go gaze lovingly at my bugaboo

PuzzleRocks · 08/02/2009 19:09

Motherhood hasn't weakened my ability to distinguish a shit journalist from an erudite one. Phew.

Shame you can't comment directly on the article. I would loved to have told her in detail about my labour.

wobbegong · 08/02/2009 19:10

Such a wind-up merchant. The article was clearly over the top and silly. Especially the outrage at finding people discussing- shock!- children on a parenting website. Felt a bit like someone who finds dogs extremely boring and dull purposely hanging around sites for pet-lovers and then complaining when people discuss dogs. She didn't seem to guess that perhaps we go on MN so that we don't bore the pants off our child-free friends.

FWIW Three or four months after I gave birth I struggled out to my first dinner party, with friends who knew I had had a child but hadn't seen me since I had her. I purposely went thinking "must not bang on about baby. must not bang on about baby". It took 1.5 hours for anyone to even acknowledge that I had given birth or that my life had changed at all. They were too busy talking about clubbing or holidays or handbags. It was a real wakeup call for me about how my life had changed.

Anyway, people who bang on about their own lives for 8 minutes- very rude. People who look at the clock when you start talking at a party- very odd.

TrillianAstra · 08/02/2009 19:12

AIBU to think people could search Mumsnet before starting another thread about the same newspaper article? Especially when it contains a fairly distinctive phrases such as 'dummy mummy'?

Here and here.

Leo9 · 08/02/2009 19:17

The article has a suble aura of 'jealous self-obsessed teenager' about it IMO. It would be good to read an article about being 'child-free' which didn't have that sort of truculent, almost competing against the children, feel about it.

TrillianAstra · 08/02/2009 19:17

That sounds harsh, doesn't it? Sorry.

But I do think it would be better if we had everyone's opinions in one place.

NancysGarden · 08/02/2009 19:18

Agree with Janos.

It was very obviously provocative. (I.e can't really take it too seriously)

I am envious of childless friends whose time is (pretty much) their own. I long to go to paying art exhibitions, adult movies (not blue, just grown-up), the pub etc etc and have more money to spend on myself. And I don't mind admitting it.

But the joy of having a child, nurturing and watching them grow is incomparable. I was never a particularly maternal person before and DD was unplanned but I am glad she put in an appearance.

Most of my friends are childless and we do talk about DD but we also have a whole host of other topics we discuss. (But tbh, would I be a good mother with child's best interests at heart if all I ever thought about were my own thoughts and desires, unconnected to child?)

NancysGarden · 08/02/2009 19:20

(oh, and where else would be an appropriate place to discuss parenting issues? )

harpsichordcarrier · 08/02/2009 19:22

my lord what a very stupid woman and a very shoddy article.
this was the "high point":

"..all this droning on about baby and toddler world is not, in the long run, doing any of us any good. For me, and many other women, it's boring and selfish, and it implicitly casts judgment on the way we choose to live our lives."
er implicitly what???? if we talk about our children, that means we are casting judgment on people who don't????
er, no it doesn't. I think her brain must have fallen out somewhere along the line and she didn't notice.

TrillianAstra · 08/02/2009 19:23

Does make me insane that I don't have children yet but enjoy talking on MN?

It is largely on non-child-related issues, but that'smostly because I don't really know that much about children and so don't have any advice to offer (although I know a lot more than when I joined), but according to the article none of you lot want to talk about anything that I, as a child-free woman, would ever be interested in discussing. Clearly not true.

TrillianAstra · 08/02/2009 19:24

Does it

Whoops

NancysGarden · 08/02/2009 19:27

Yes.

Just kidding.

Illustrates quite nicely that we all post about a range of things, many nothing to do with offspring, proving that we do still have brains and are still capable of tuning into subjects other than our little darlings

cheshirekitty · 08/02/2009 19:34

Why do female journalists feel the need to bash other women whose lives are different from their own?

Just because the journo has chosen to have a child free life does not make her right.

If I was at a dinner party, give me the 'dummy mummy' anytime over the know it all, I am better than you journo.

shrinetothomastank · 08/02/2009 19:48

in the end it's just lazy reporting. They should sack her and let one of us have a go -we could take it in turn to rant about anything without having to know much about whatever subject we choose - easy!!...and a lot like my real life....

curlygal · 08/02/2009 19:51

I read both Rachel Cooke's and Polly Vernon's articles (they were in the Observer Woman Magazine today - when were they in the guardian).

I thought that both of them were a bit too judgemental and nasty. I can understand that it must be frustrating as a childless woman of childbearing age to be constantly asked if you want children, but there's no need to be so dismissive of women who do have children.

I don;t think it's wrong for a woman to love babies, neither do I think it's wrong for a woman not to want children. Each to their own and all that. I personally love babies and will lean into a pram or ask for a cuddle if appropriate, I don;t think that makes me a weirdo. I would love more chldren but I may never have them, it;s not the be all and end all but it is an important part of my life.

Those two articles were so dismissive of women having children full stop. What exactly would happen if we all just decided to stop having children FULL STOP. Hmmmmmm not such a good idea.

I am very proud of my son but I am also interested in plenty of other things such as reading, cinema, fitness, politics, the envirnoment etc, I probably don;t have as much time as I would like to spend on other activities but that hardly makes me boring and baby obsessed.

Mungarra · 08/02/2009 19:51

The Guardian and Observer are always doing stories like that i.e about how they're breaking taboos by not having children - big yawn. I suppose they have to write about something and journalists love writing about themselves.

TrillianAstra · 08/02/2009 19:52

The Observer is the Guardian as far as I know, just it's Sunday incarnation. The links all go to the Guardian website.

pinkteddy · 08/02/2009 19:56

Glad I found this thread. I was incensed after reading this article. In fact the whole magazine seemed to be about mummy bashing - 3 anti baby/mother articles FFS in 'Observer woman'

Boobz · 08/02/2009 19:57

I'm giving Rachel the benefit of the doubt, that she isn't as silly as she sounds and that she needed to take an extreme view to sell the article in to her editor. If it was a bit more balanced, presumably it wouldn't get such a reaction and then hasn't really lived up to the brief as a Guardian columnist - be provocative and controversial.

Or maybe she's a silly bint.

Either way, I wonder if her friends with kids will have much to say to her about anything at all in the future.

Swedes · 08/02/2009 19:58

I don't think that first article (haven't read the second) was dismissive of having children. Just dismissive of the way some parents assume everyone wants to constantly talk about their children. It's tedious.

epithet · 08/02/2009 19:58

Does the Guardian/Observer have some vested interest in letting the human race die out?

I think we should be told.