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...

Her next article is entitled "my choice not to be a man: 20 reasons not to have a sex change"!!

i wish her twins.

but get her point, for lots of people its like they had a brain transplant

also agree re: alpha mummy - dull as dishwater for those who like to think they are highbrow, but are really poncey arsecakes

LOL Divine

Or even "How not to support friends who are TTC"

Or

"How to assess your friendships using my shallow biased questionning technique"

I do think the whole 'motherhood as lifestyle' phenomenon is pretty vomit-inducing. But I think most women on mumsnet heartily dislike the whole 'cupcakes and bunting,' lifestyle too as it bears no resemblance to life as a WOHM or SAHM.

But why pick on women in particular? As others have pointed out, many men can bore for Britain. DP's favourite pub conversations include 'How to win at Blackjack/poker/accumulator bets and 'fantastic newspaper puns I have known and loved.' Yawn. Still rather discuss that than BLW though.

I have a (male) friend who is a town planner. And one who is obsessed with Arsenal. That's already a couple of hundred hours of my life gone that I'll never get back. And children grow up, whereas football is for life.
But what really bugs me about the Cooke feature is the way she has fallen into that common trap of assuming that because she has just become part of a certain demographic (in her case professional women in their late thirties) that there is something new about the phenomenon itself. The other side of that coin is the thirty-something journalist who suddenly has the first baby ever to be born (Zoe Williams, I'm looking at you).
Just because it's new to you doesn't mean it is new.

Great! A new stereotype and a new label. I couldn't give less of a shit why they don't want children than they would give about my reasons to.

It was all a bit nasty and unnecessary.

So she doesn't want to go to a party and talk to someone who is interested in something she isn't interested in and then complains about it. She needs to go and find something a bit more interesting to write about IMVHO.

After all, what's a mother ever done for her?

Some of these comments have really made me larf! So much more astute than that silly article.

LOL lv mumsnet - I so do hope she read this thread

I think the fact that women like Polly Vernon and Rachel Cook exist is a testament to our fucked up society. In other places all those in extended families and close knit communities share the work of raising children and caring for the elderly. Unfortunately there is now a whole swathe of society which has minimal contact with anyone except people exactly like themselves - not just in terms of social class but in terms of age as well. I think that's really unhealthy. It's the the stupidity and the insularity of that world that gets to me. And the sheer lack of humanity and imagination.

Hahaha..in banging on about how dull she finds everyone who has ever had a child she has managed to write an article that in itself is very dull anhd little more than the ramblings of woman who is very up her own arse.Of course people who've had kids want to talk about them.They are quite a big part of a persons life.Same as am sure she talks aboitu ehr job, or her holidays or whatever else is fascinating to her.

She has just droned on for a whole article about despising people who talk about kids.Thus she is her own worst enemy-because indirectly she is also talking about kids.
Ridiculous.How does such nonsense get printed?

She says she wants to avoid stereotypes.But she plays into one-the bitter late 30 something totally-whilst all the time protesting too much that that isnt what she is.

Boring, thoughtless people bore their friends with excessive details about their own particular lifestage: marriage, house-buying, decorating, early career, career change, and yes, even children.

I'm sure there are plenty of dull mothers out there who don't bother to ask what their "child-free" friends are up to.

No doubt there are also a fair few self-absorbed journalists who are too busy bragging about their trips to the Yemen to bother actually listening to news about their friends'/acquaintances' families.

So Rachel Cooke also reckons that society is getting more materialistic. No kidding. Give that woman a medal. Does she seriously think that is exclusive to mothers?

I like the fact that the Guardian is provocative but this sort of vitriol is tired, unhelpful and adds nothing new to the debate. Lazy journalism.

I can just picture her, dandling some lovely baby on her knee, thinking, "but what about ME?? ask about ME??????!!!!! Surely you must want to know about MEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
thank the lord I don't know anyone like this in real life.

chillybangbang and notin theknow, you have nailed it.

I don't think that it is offensive. I think she has a point. I absolutely love being a mum but I have become a complete bore since having dd. Where I used to talk about literature and art I now talk about poo and puree. I am also strangely obsessed with the right buggy etc. Trouble is- I'm happy this way and very proud so I hang out with other mums who are likewise happy. I might try and use my work head when dd is a bit older.

I'm glad this is here, I was sooooooo angry after reading that claptrap yesterday. Some people want and have kids, some people don't and don't. Why the need for such spite from that woman (and as for Polly vernon - I make a living writing about getting pissed and staying thin - get over yourself). How can we expect decent maternity rights, to get back where we were in our careers (if we so wish) when our own gender heaps such vitriol on us.

I am far too busy making goo-goo noises at my baby to have an opinion on this

I hope Polly Cocktail-Cow gets knocked up some time soon, the miserable beeyatch

Oh she has just altered the facts to suit her hypothesis. She must have read mumsnet, yet she completely ignores the clear evidence that most people have opinions about breastfeeding AND Iraq.
tbh, she sounds like just the sort of person to develop Bugaboo eyes if she ever does have a baby herself.

rofl at Bugaboo Eyes.

Yes. We won't forget will we? And then we will trounce them when they're back wittering on about stretch marks and nanny fees.

I was intolerant of children prior to giving birth having a c-section myself. I was once recorded on video at a party telling someone to fire a bloody tranquiliser dart at the children who, with hindsight, were very well behaved. I looked fantastic though - cheek bones and clavicles to die for.

We all probably were Swedes, weren't we? I remember telling another parent of two kids about another child who'd visited my house once. I described him as the Child from Hell because he'd cried because the milk I'd offered him was not warmed up. The dad did a whole 'How to talk' thing about 'oh dear, and you really wanted it warm didn't you?' number. While I stood there gobsmacked that he hadn't forced the little brat to apologise to me! The outrage.

The parent I was regaling this injustice to just smiled witheringly at me and nodded.

Now of course, I blush at the memory of my crassness. It just makes the point though that there is only BC and AD (Anno Desperatus). We should just nod and pat her on the head really shouldn't we?

Whoever name-changed to Rachelsize6 has given me the best laugh on MN in yonks, so thanks. Am just catching up on this thread, and for those that are interested, I've done the same FT job now for 11 years. I must work very close to Polly Vernon, because for a while when I lived in N. London she was on my bus, now I occasionally walk pass her on a certain London street (not wanting to locate myself too specifically).

In those 11 years, she has gone from lovely fresh faced girl (who I recognised because she was writing for, I dunno, smash hits or Heat or something with her pic in it) to a more and more wizened old fash hag. The bag, the sloppy beanie with ever decreasing drainpipe jeans - the hollow eyes, the venti coffee dangling from a skeletal wrist.... I just thought - what a fascinating insight these bi-monthly sightings have given me into what a decade does to an aspiring female journo in this ghastly Londontown...

It would irritate that journalist much more for us to be empathic. It's impossible to understand the depth of feelings and fulfillment involved until you actually become a mother..... but most of us have walked a mile in her prejudices, haven't we?

Sycamore - I was RachelCookeSize6 - so thanks.

This thread is being even more foul about these 2 writers than they were about us lot!

I'm being pushed to really defend them now!

Poor Polly being called a fash hag! Hell, I've been mean about 100s of slebs on mumsnet but I'm growing a conscience about why women (including me!) are so horrible about other women.

They have every right to dislike the monomania of maternity. It is absolutely vile if you're an outsider. Why can't we all just be big about it and say - Fair cop - we should all try harder to be less solipsistic!!

Go Rachel! Go Polly!