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 agree with her to a certain extent. I am interested in my DC and they occupy a lot of my thought, but I don't expect others to share that. Which is one of the reasons I come here - If I feel the need to witter on about my children I feel free to do so. I don't in RL - why would anyone want to hear that? I will confess to a pain in my jaw (caused by the attempt to suppress huge yawns) when the mothers of really little children begin to recite the sayings/doings/bowel movements of their children. But I listen (reasonable) patiently because I've been there and know how it is important to share these vital things. If I hadn't been a mother I don't think I would. Hate to say this but it would be different if/when she had DC... But a bit mean to critisise parenting sites - after all that is their raison d'etre. She could just avoid them.

My life has other aspects too. If I sat someone down and bored them rigid about my running for ages I suspect they would begin to avoid me. Not that different with children is it?

And the accessorisation of babyhood is annoying. Having to have just the right make of pushchair/high chair/cot etc. And I can't even suppress a yawn on that subject

I've just worked out that in the last 4 months, I have read nearly 20 books including Barack Obama's "Dreams from my Father", Malcolm Gladwells "Outliers" and "Blink", Malorie Blackman's series of Noughts and Crosses (4 books) plus some easy reads by African-American romantic writers like Crystal Hubbard (Blame it on Paradise and Crush).

On top of that, I read technical journals and magazines, I work part-time as a scientist, I am a Non-Executive Director for a NHS Trust, I teach Sunday School, I support the school PTA and I have 4yo twin boys.

I foun the writer of that article extremely tedious.

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

I think we should be told.'

tis a good point

PV should be jolly grateful that some of us are a little less concerned with the freedom to whizz off to New York at any given moment, be thin, lie in bed all weekend etc etc and have been dumb enough to prioritise having kids over these tantalizing delights (which we are all of course insanely jealous of)

really, she should be thanking us, not slagging us off

tsk, Polly, think on
we have had kids so important journos like you with cocktails to drink and expensive jeans to visit can get on with your lives...

but I do feel dreadfully sorry that RC failed to impress some hapless bystander with tales of her trip to the Yemen

Notice these articles never slag of fathers who only ever talk about their football team, cricket, their golf handicap or how much they drank at the weekend?

This morning, the guys were talking about the rugby and cricket and football.

And intolerance. I can put up with just about anything apart from intolerance...

CatIsSleepy, don't mock poor Polly - if one is very thin, lying in bed all weekend can be uncomfortable. I feel her pain.

Oh it's threads like this one that make me love MN- I do hope the author reads it and takes a few notes on how to be erudite, hilarious, intelligent and succinct!!

Esp loving the hypothesis that Guardian may have a vested interest in the human race dying out, all that pompous Yemen stuff ('I'll take her Yemen and raise her Iraq LOLLLL') 'Knobserver women' and the people who have wondered about men's role in all this...

Knobserver Woman, sorry

I think that one's perspective changes again once your DCs are a bit older (mine are now 9, 7 and 4) and you get a bit of distance from the intensity of pregnancy, childbirth, your DCs' early days etc.

I can in a way see what she is on about - I would find it quite dull now to talk to someone whose only topics of conversation was pregnancy, childbirth, sleepless nights, breastfeeding, baby-led weaning etc.

But on the other hand it's very difficult to convey the intensity of all that to someone who has never had a baby.

Yeah i also wonder what Emily Wilson fellow journo who authored Life after birth thought of it - silly clothes horse, maybe she polishes the wheels on her gucci globe trotting luggage set.

I cant get over how she treats her own friends after they have a baby.

SAD materialistic look where I have been recently person.

Maybe Polly and Rachel are jealous of Emily? I bet it's hell in that office.

I hope Emily has stacks of photos of her little one(s) on her desk AND all her exotic hols/travels including articfacts from far flung places on her desk in that said office

PPolly has always been an audult you know, I mean I am sure she would be horrified at the amount of time I spent on my DS novelty b day cake this week end or the essay that my DH and I are writing for each other for valentines - which is FULLY researched and referenced.

I also firmly believe that my DH would not be where he is if it were not for me picking things up at this end and I do still teach part time.

I am so angry about this article I cant leave it alone - I might write to the guardian - I am going to email Emily

Well I agree with her (without the nastiness). People do go on and on about their children and it is mind numbingly dull.

I still see what these two women mean and I feel for them. They are a silent group largely drowned out by the rest of us I fear.

But there is a rather grand assumption from these two fortunate career women that all careers are glorious and fulfilling! NOT SO for many of us, work for many people is a necessary drudgery full of grimness. Motherhood can be an incredible joy after and unstimulating career!

But it can also be isolating, lonely and intolerable.

We should probably ideally be much more sisterly.

But I do retain the right to find mothers like J Hobsbawm who have a FULL TIME house huband, moaning and writing books about how you can be supermum by listening to the newspaper on your ipod while you do the dishes. She is just to exceptional to tell the rest of us how to juggle it all. Her experience is far too rare! imho.;

sorry, find J Hobsbawm too irritating. I'd prefer a childfree woman who is fed up of us mothers to being preached at by JH!!!

People go on and on about a whole bunch of stuff - film bores, holiday bores, wine bores, sports bores and sex bores are all deadly - and it's the variety of conversation that's fun. But to pigeonhole all mothers as boring and (and this is the bit that really gets me) stupid because they have reproduced is pathetic.

Right, off to do something bovine and meaningless. Laters!

Yes choc you are right but not all mummys are boring and not all non mummys interesting, like someone said she doth protest too much

they're not a silent group though are they queenc? here they are droning on about how they don't want kids as it turns you into a dummy/means you never read/don't want to hear about their trips to the yemen etc

and i think that they are more than a little miffed that their friends who now have children now have less time to spend with them

Could be right about the time thing Cat,

I wonder what sortof article they woud write if they new about what i call the other side of parenthood (note this include the FATHERS too - funny that) my guilty secrets are:

I cant wait to get out of house and be with DH on the rare occasions we have babysitters

At 6 o'clock I cant stop watching the clock or waiting for goodnight song on Cbeebies when ive had a full day 'ful of it' with my little one

That I mess about on here learning all sorts of things whilst DS (right now) watches thomas DVD

That I have a friend who has a 2 month old and is studying for a post grad qualification

And what about all these mumprenuers - bitter and barren if you askme

TIT MIGHT BE THAT I am possibly raising a son (or anyone of your sons/daughters) could be a prosecuting lawyer in years to come if she writes more and rubbish that she ends up liable for

Tis a funny thing about newspaper columnists, that they assume that everyone else has the same lifestyle as them or else aspires to it. What's wrong with a little diversity, eh?

And no-one should ever feel that they can't bitch about the boring side of their lives, be they lifestyle columnist or SAHM of four. Everyone's lives have cruddy or inane bits in them and the hallmark of good manners is to be a little tolerant of other people's need to whinge, just as it is nice to find a listening ear when the urge to bitch rises in one's own gorge. I hope P and R feel that they have got it out of their systems now and can be charming and tolerant of their friends' problems.

Respect to your friend with the postgrad, bigeyes. What a star!

Could it be that the government has realised that as a nation we cannot afford any more babies right now? Could it also be, that if thirty something women could just continue buying transatlantic flights and handbags the economy may just scrape through? Could it be because developers have built too many one and two bedroom luxury executive apartments and not enough family houses? Could it just be that journalism is not what it was?

You are damned if you do and damned if you don't when it comes to motherhood. People are boring when they talk about their jobs all the time too - people are in fact quite boring most of the time - not just mothers. There's nothing wrong in being excited about motherhood. While I'm on the subject of boring that article was pretty boring too - she did her fair share of droning on that's for sure.

Ooh, check this out - apparently pregnancy sharpens the mind...

It's amazing, isn't it, what science will discover if one waits long enough.