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...

epithet - Well they always seem to be working on lowering their readership.

True enough, Swedes .

Polly Vernon once again airs her dull, predictable views without humour, intelligence or even an interesting turn of phrase. Yawn. And she calls herself a 'journalist.' Isn't it glaringly obvious that you can't lump all mothers together just because they've produced kids.
The Standard's Fashion Ed Laura Craik, who is a mother, put it brilliantly in one of her columns: " child-free women of a certain age can disappear into a fug of self-obsession." How true.
Of course Polly's friends with kids have changed. Guess what... they're not focussing on her and her really useful life of, er, writing about cocktail bars and slagging off other women.
It's a crying shame that Observer Woman is so clique-y. What a wasted opportunity.

It gets shitter and shitter and more sensationalist every week.If not for travel and Nigel S I wouldn't buy it any more.

There is a whif of desparation about ti.

not so sure about being offended by. I was just plain old bored. I somewhat heroically fought the urge to stop reading about a quarter way in (out of loyalty to you lot) but really had to give up at half-way.

Oh yaaaawwwn.

I don't find it offensive but I do find it boring. It's not exactly a new or alternative view point is it? I've certainly read articles like this before where an oh-so sophisticated 'child free' woman slags off mothers for being boring and unable to talk about anything other than her children. It's such a cliche.

And I can't believe she managed to bleat on about the gap between richer and poorer the paragraph below the one where she bragged about her trip to Austria...

Stupid cow.

tbh I don't normally buy the paper on a sunday it's only coz i was too poorly to make it to corner shop yday that had to settle for observer today. Moondog you are right!

And Musgrove I have to agree with you too, not a single whiff of humour or stylistic nuance.

(And far from being the 2-dimensional mumoid these plonkers journos witter on about describe, I admit that i probably put off most of my childless colleagues and friends of having children because I do complain quite a lot about lack of time to do the things I once loved doing...

The author of that artical was clearly going for affect - it was badly written, boring and i struggled to get to the end of it.

As for her comments re mumsnet and buggy reviews - she clearly hasn't visited the AIBU board! Daffy cow

It read like some sort of desperate singleton who is battling to find someone dumb enough to settle down with her and impregnante her - "oh, but i never wanted children anyway"

Yeah yeah love - talk to the hand I AINT BOVVERED!

What does she want her friends with children to talk about then? Was a yawnsome article.

fragmented too long and frankly dull

That was the first paragraph

Actually Boobz - that's a very good point. I think I'd make a point of ignoring her at parties if I knew her

alot of journalists like to write about the fact that they're 40 and childless. i reckon they're just not really happy at all

Oh rofl at all the thin girls (do you remember Polly V carping on about how her life is so much better now she's a size 6? Or whatever)

See, they're just hitting their late thirties and realizing they'll have no excuse for running to fat, getting ugly and not going out anymore like the rest of us.

And their persistent refusal to Join The Dark Side is all they can bleat on about because they know, in 20 years time, when Exciting World Travelling Mr Journo has traded them in for - oh fuck yes - a size 8 girl in skinny jeans, they will have no-one to talk to.

Fuck off Do better darlings. Even an ingenue or bright young thing has to grow up sometime.

Wilfsell - I really don't see why not having children will mean her man will leave her for a girl in skinny jeans.

i started to read it but at the bit where she started going on about to going to Australia I got bored and thought this woman has verbal diarrhoea.

I so do not have the time for twaddle like that...

Oh I know Swedes, but hey, if she can work with bitchy clichés, can't we all? We'll all get left for the skinny 12 year old TBh, but at least we'll have an excuse....

Have written to the editor.

just glanced at it again - and whilst I hesitate to give it "air time" there are 3 things that stike me

1. her point about women talking about being mothers more because they have kids later - I think she nearly has a point - but slightly the wrong one. The crucial thing is that most of us choose to have babies. It really wasn't so long ago when choice in these matters barely existed. and having children was just what one did.

1. I'll match her Yemen and raise her Iraq. when dds were two and a half, and 8 months. pompous show-off.

1. like all these stupid mother-bashing articles, my main reaction is to feel pity for these journalists who seem to have an inordinate quota of friends who are boring/wanky/self-obsessed or that they just don;t like. Are journalists incapable of befriending people they actually like and have something in common with?

what I can't get over is how she can go on about rachida dati (a far point that some of the things said about her return to work were unedifying) and not think that this is not similarly unedifying...

and maybe I'm not fucking interested in hearing the views of stuck up opinonated know it all journo (am right with you there about who I'd prefer to talk to chesirekitty) but I don't go out seeking them (god knows where you look.. upyourownarse.com or moresmugthanyou.com) to then get all het up about it

Read OP and a few more but not all (way too interested in my children to spend the time frankly )
I have to say I quite liked the article, though I don't necessarily agree with her.
I haven't formed the words yet, (bit baby brain... which would really piss this journalist off!) so will type as I think...

1. Maybe it is to do with, in general, a lot of us being a bit older/more experienced that we're so 'into' our role but I think that's a good thing. If our, perceived, obsession is annoying... sorry honey, it's just that our children matter.

and 2. It's less, for me, about the inherent selfishness of a person (woman or man) without children and more to do with the utter selflessness required to be a parent (mother or father). However, I would like more time to read (but figure I will at some point in the future) and sometimes I am much more likely to go off on a tangent re dc anecdotes, (sue me, when I'm not with them, I like to think about them!)

I agree the article is trite, poorly researched and one sided but....

Some mums are dull-as-shite, endless converstaions about gina/sleep routines/the micro nuances of their dcs development are booooring.

I DO pity Mums who struggle to talk about anthing except their dcs and it IS dull for the rest of the world, I make a conscious effort to only speak about dd when asked and then NOT drone on and attemot to have a variety of things to discuss that will be interesting to the other person. It's also the reason i avoid any parent groups that aren't activity focussed like the plague.

When i go out in the eve it's usually with childless friends and unless they bring up the subject themselves I never ask about their plans to have dcs, it might be a very intrusive and sensitive subject.

I know of few women who genuinely, completely and without agenda DON'T WANT CHILDREN, they're not jealous, or embittered or protesting too much, it's just how they genuinely feel.

WHAT DRIED UP OLD PRUNE WROTE THIS SHITE????

Wilfsell - I thought you were going to say we'll all get left for a girl in skinny jeans but we won't notice because we'll be too busy focussing on our children.

Seriously though, it is ridiculous to assume that every woman wants or should have children. I know quite a few friends who have children and say that if they had their time over again they would remain childless. They are perfectly loving and competent mothers - just exhausted and sometimes overwhelmed by the relentlessness of being a mother.

She doesn't know what she's talking about- she says as much in the first paragraph. It is just as well she has decided not to have children. Nothing wrong with that. Also most of her article is decidedly rhetorical and deliberately provocative. There are plenty of women with children who are successful in their chosen career as well, and are able to talk about something other than nappies and pushchairs.

Water, duck, back.

I did think it highly funny that yet again the Lazy School of Journalism had to resort to lampooning a parenting site (presumably MN?) -and not the "adult fiction" or "chicken keepers" topics, but the thread on here at the moment that is least likely to be interesting to anybody not a parent. It just feels as though she protesteth too much, frankly...

Yes, doubtless she'll be glued to her screen with her bottle of vodka Sauvignon Blanc, watching it kick off.

Just one thing, Rach and Poll: when you do decide to join the Dark Side (like, er, Zo did) don't expect us to fawn over yer newfangled Yummy Mummy bleatings either.

Oh, and BTW, the mother who didn't see films wasn't putting her children first you daft muppet: she couldn't get a babysitter who was competent enough to put her children to bed as well as sit on the sofa AND she didn't want to waste a full evening's babysittng on wankery when she could have been drinking Tequila and shagging her husband.