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...

I love the fact that she has clearly been HERE, on this site and yet has managed to only pick up on these particular threads. I mean, you only have to sign up to the round-up to see that these things are the more practical side of the site and that the other side of the site contains much more than just "how my kids talk". It is such a shame that someone, who is so happy reading, couldn't be bothered to read any further than a few select thread titles.

What really bugs me though, I spent around 8 minutes reading that article (that I won't get back) time during which I was bored with a monolouge of self-centred tripe about nothing much at all. Yet the writer herself acknowledges that it is rude to do that to people. Perhaps she would be better suited to writing short pieces on varied (dare I push it to interesting) subjects. That way she can follow her own advice.

Well, I spent precisely ten seconds trying to make sense of her challenging grammar before realizing that life is a little too short.

I agree with a lot of what she says.
Convoluted sentence construction pants though.

Why on earth would I want to talk to my friends about Michelle Obama? What makes her a more worthy topic of conversation than my children? Has she done something of global significance or is she about to or would the conversation simply be about the clothes the first lady wears and the life she had before her husband's presidential campaign took it over? As far as I can see, her sought after topics of conversation would be far more vacuous than any conversation I might have about my children.

when i get together with my friends who both have children we rarely even mention the kids. (ok well that;s a lie but we DO talk about other things!)

at a dinner party RC probably talks about her job a lot. well, my job right now is being a mother. what the feck ELSE am I gong to talk about??

anyone else notice this:

Twenty other reasons not to have a baby
Why I don't want children
The DUmmy Mummy Decade

all under the FAMILY section.

WTF.

I think she has a point.

Yeah, she has a point in that some parents (note: NOT just mothers) are boring.

However, many other people are boring too - some journalists for example.

Well lots of people bore the sh*t out of me. For example, two friends I've had coffee with lately, both in their 40s, both childless. I am happy to listen to them drone on about endless men problems, as I have for many years, and the record doesn't change...ever. And yes I have a baby and am married so I try very hard not talk about myself because I'm scared to sound smug and a little rude. So my life is not worth talking about any more. So I'll just sit and listen, forget about telling my friends what is important in my life - listen to their boring drivel and when it is my turn to speak just talk about current affairs?

Oh and by the way, I do have a dummy, a lipstick and an ipod in my pocket. I think there might be some half eaten ricecake stuck to the ipod though.

I think she has a point. I know a few 'my baby my baby my baby my baby' women and they are pretty much as she describes. Of course not all are like that! But a goodly few are ...

i sat Hear Hear to this woman.

My single and child free friends say it is horrendous how parents go on and on about their kids/fulfilment.

The worst offenders are slebs who say " I didn't know what life was about til I became a parent" it's so dismissive of non parents!

I agree she sounds smug and all but her work IS her baby and that's fair enough! Imo, we have become weirdly worshipping of childhood and the maternal experiemnce can be hugely competitive.

I'm sure I've been beyond dull on subject of motherhood! It's good, imo, to hear what it's like being on the receiving end of it.

Ridiculously vitriolic and badly written, Polly Vernon's article in particular reads like a stroppy teenager (think Peaches Geldof) has written it in an attempt to be 'in yer face' . Disregard along with all articles by Carole Sarler.

I disagreed with what the articles were saying, but worse, they were badly written and done for effect. Rachel Cooke sometimes writes sense, Polly Vernon is off the scale stupid though.

Yawn, snore. As boring to read as I'm sure it was to write. She sounds like a tedious monotonous drone who expects us all (mothers of the world unite!) to drool at her faux Carrie Bradshaw existence.
God help her younger sisters if she is "maternal" towards them, I'd rather a gentle nudge in the back into the path of an oncoming juggernaut... (am very hormonal, can you tell?)

I have a theory about this issue of Knobserver Woman. I reckon the editor clocked how disparaging Mumsnetters have been of her ridiculous publication and commissioned those features as revenge.

Some mothers are as dull as ditchwater. Most of us have loads of things in our lives, not just the children. What non parents can't understand though is how fundamentally having children does change you. The process of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and then being a parent is so great, so all encompassing. I might well this week enjoy my full time work as much if not more than children things, I went skiing last week only with one adult child with people who don't have children, I enjoyed reading the Markopolos submissions to Congress on the Madoff thing more than anything I might have read about children on line and I don't talk to non parents about dull stuff to do with my children, but I still affected by being a mother.

Parents though need to be very careful not to bore non parents rigid or make smug judgments about being a parent being the one right way. It's not. It's bad for teh planet and arguably a less morally right way to live a life than to be a non parent.

lol LadyG - wonder what they'll write next?

Sorry to be interested in my child. I must make a mental note to ignore him more. But I can't because I am a stupid and cowlike Dummy Mummy.

Oops, that nappy needs changing. Want to hear all about the contents thereof and that clever thing he did on Friday that made us all laugh so much?

Oh, how I wish I had more time for writing columns about drinking margaritas in Hoxton.

I agree Xenia, but some journalists too are about as interesting as a repeat of an old weather forecast!
Just this journo (all disrespect intended) seemed to infer or imply that because she wasn't a mother she was automatically more interesting.
I expect she has a hierarchy of mums, with the underclass being mums who don't "work"...

Yes, how dare mothers be intersted in their children!

Look, boring people are always going to be boring whether it's about parenthood, banking regulations or the price of fish.

Once you become a mother you are still, shock horror, an individual with their own life/ideas/thoughts/feelings/opinions.

Agree with janos, boring is a personality trait, mother or not.

What I find boring are people who think they are much more clever and interesting than anyone else. I have met people like this in all walks of life and I find it is like a form of arrogance. I HATE ARROGANCE!

I couldnt even finish reading it stupid cow.

Maybe she feels left out?

Maybe she really does wnat a baby? (freudian?)

Maybe she is the one cause division in equality by writing articles like this.

Maybe she needs to find new friends

And.. dont people read reviews of all products they buy not just baby related stuff?

Fancy her applying 'I wait to see my friends ask a real question about the outside world?' before she make her mind up about them - shallow wotsit - why on earth would you want to know some one like her, she does not balance out her strikingly shallow observations with the fact that everyone even her was born of a women and most enjoyed the love and attention of a good mother. What was she independant from birth? Tyoing oyt shit like this by the time she was 1yr old.

to say the least

I guess the degree and middle management position I held before becomming a mum means nothing - because YES I DO talk to other people about my little one PROUDLY and other stuff.

RANT OVER.... I think

Me too bradsmissus.

I'm great though

I agree with Xenia about the changes thing - I'd love to know what is so fulilling about her life in the media and South East that I am apparently missing out on?

I wonder what her mum thinks of this article?