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...

yes. go 'cocktail girl'. aged 37.

[thunk]

But why do we have to hate people we disagree with? Of course I usually do! But why should we?
I have girlfriends who are childfree and they suffer in silence so much with loved up parents boring them to death about ickle jake and imogen's general genius/sweetness etc.
Why shouldn't PV be a cocktail girl at 30-whatever?

I feel ridiculously lucky to have my 2 dc but I respect people who know that they don't want children.

If there's anything worse than somebody droning on about their children, it's somebody droning on in print without having actually engaged their brains - and getting paid for it.

Rachel Cooke (and I hope you're reading this thread), do you know nothing about human beings? Don't you realise that if a person is a bore, they are simply a bore and they will bore you rigid about any subject under the sun, whether it be babies, gardening, WW2 bi-planes or the sorry state of 21st century journalism? So why do you single out women with babies for chastisment? Because you had too much to do and a looming deadline, both of which have numbed your brain into second place behind your typing fingers.

You say in your utterly pointless article: "There is also the ever-present risk that I will be accused - too predictable, this - of being someone who simply dislikes children". No, my dear. You are not someone who dislikes children. You are someone who dislikes your own brain. You are, in your own words, a dummy. There. I've said it. And so has everyone else on this thread. Now bog off and get a job you can actually do.

Yeah. Sheesh, I even prefer Ann Leslie and Julie Burchill to these two.

They really are awful bores, aren't they?

Well, I can think of worse things to call someone than a fash hag! Of course I'm just having a bit of a laugh - in the spirit of the thread and (deserved, imo) retaliation. I'm sure PV is a lovely lady really.

I see what you are saying queenceleste, but this isn't some mad, hormonally driven attack out of nowhere - it's a direct emotional reaction to a stupid provocative article. And I actually think this thread is full of very articulate and reasonable responses - much more articulate and reasonable than those of RC.

So if her editor is looking for a replacement...they may want to look no further than some of the posters on this thread - yourself included!

Oh, she is fash hag (and one suspects, a fag hag ). And fair play to her. But anyone who writes about clothes and make up for a living has got a slight cheek sniping about motherhood being a boring topic.

Anyway, what circles do these women mix in? I've just had a conversation with my neighbour (mum of 4) on the doortstep. Two min chat about local schools , 20 min chat about Gaza. Not a mention of cocktails or eye shadow, though.

p.s. what sycamoretree said!

Much as it's fun to go on about Polly Vernon being a waste of space - yes, even that little space is too much - clearly she knows it, as it is her life's work to take up less and less - I do agree it would be better to stop bitching about women.

Actually it's the New Daddies who are worse. As lots of people on this thread have acknowledged, there are times when some parents are just Too Much, too selfish (on behalf of their kids), too precious, too boring, etc etc. But the most breathless displays of my-pfb-centred solipsism have been from posh dads who already think they are heroes for engaging with their own squabs, and therefore think the rest of the world owe them red carpets and sweeping bows. whenever some child has kicked a football into my (selfish, childless, decadent 20-something) picnic, rather than just move 20 yards away, its mother has always been very apologetic and its father has always behaved as if we have been privileged to receive a little gobbet of golden football heaven from his spawn's sacred foot.

Of course women can have a meaningful life without children... I didn't think anyone was saying the opposite.

It's back to the whole live and let live thing again isn't it. Whether we are talking about breast vs bottle, SAHM vs WOHM, bugaboo vs maclaren, primark vs gucci. Or children vs no children.

Each to their own.

Though I suppose that would make a rather dreary newspaper article (mental note, stay in current profession....)

Who actually subjects anyone to anything on a daily basis, though?@annimac. We're not journalists. I personally don't spend my life thinking up articles aimed at making people feel like shit.

Polly & Rachel Whatsername are fair game. Not for pointless woman-hating sniping (NO)...but they're rightfully in for a bit of a pasting on a parenting site.

So sorry, I am a proud feminist (honest, Guv!), but my heart does not bleed for these two.

Yeah, of course annie. But they weren't exactly holding back their own spite and venom were they. Live by the sword, die by the sword is my, er, motto (of the day).

Their own articles would have been pretty damned offensive to people struggling to conceive also, no?

hear hear Vezzie and anniemac.

I think these articles are a tiny voice crying in the wilderness from childless women who are 99.9% of the time
not heard by society and the rest of us.

I have a childfree, single friend in her 40s who still goes to weddings and gets asked if she's gay. She isn't but that shows how hard it is for most of society to understand someone who doesn't have children or a partner. It's so painful whether you want kids/marriage etc or not. It's about feeling looked down on imo. And it's good that we have publications that reflect the whole range of experience. What if they do feel venomous?! So what if they're self-absorbed, into fashion whatever, the point is we're all pretty much imperfect.

I think I'll be a bit better for reading those articles. A little more compassionate and maybe less dull!

I've had a goodly share of infertility in my time and other women could barely care less in general! They are so full of celebration/joy/relief that they often just fail to consider how their expressions of it all impacts on those around them.
rant over

Well, I thought the article was a pointless piece of nasty Daily Mail-esque 'let's set women against other women and generally just snipe about women and how deathly dull they become once they have kids' trash - so we'll have to disagree!

I don't know anyone - not a soul - who would ever make anyone without children (through choice or infertility) feel bad about their situation. OK, except maybe my MIL, but she is a bitter old crone

I think this whole 'parental bubble' thing must be the preserve of a few very strange (and I suspect, very privileged) people, because most of the parents I know are gagging for a bevvy and a chat about non-child related stuff when they get the chance! In fact, the only time I ever get to indulge in obsessional banter about potty training and weaning is on Mumsnet. Nobody in my RL gives a fuck!

MrsMattie I really disagree, I don't think it's pointless for another woman to express how she feels whether it's comfortable for others or not. They have the right to express it surely. And why would they make it up? I don't think people with children know what it's like any more. We've gone over to the other side. And believe me lots of really nice people can be insensitive without meaning to, it's not intentional, it's just parental smugness, it's a very common thing! Why can't we read it and take it seriously rather than just trashing them both?
If it makes us uncomfortable, so be it. Why not feel uncomfortable and think about it?
That's how it makes me feel.

It doesn't make me feel 'uncomfortable'. It just makes me think 'Oh GROW UP!'. That's my honest opinion, whether it makes people feel 'uncomfortable' or not.

(...and all of my best friends and my sister are childless women in their 30s - all through choice, at the moment, I should add - so I do think about it.)

Besides which, I don't think the article was aimed at getting people to be more understanding and sympathetic towards childless women. Do you? Really? There was a distinct whiff of sticking the knife in and juggling it about a bit, to me.

We do not live in a family friendly society. Mumsnet is not the real world. Women with kids take enough of a bashing as it is.

Nothing on earth will persuade me that articles like this help anyone.

So why aren't we all discussing an article talking about men who bore on about football or men / women who talk about their jobs endlessly? because just as many people are guilty of these things. Women who are immersed in child rearing - perhaps because they are SAHMS or because their children are very small - are somehow boring thickos because they are passionate about their kids and about what they actually do all day.

Christ, that isn't feminism!

I don't think the aim of the article is the point really. I just think it's good to try to listen to different points of view, particularly if it's aimed against oneself.

Most disputes involve each side trashing and discrediting each other.

Of course most of what people say is true on this thread. But the feelings of these two women are, imho, nevertheless valid. They are entitled to feel how they do. And so are we. I'd just like to entitle them to their view without having to trash them even if they've trashed me. The trashing is about feeling unheard, in my opinion. Childless women in our society are not really heard about their childlessness.

When I was childless the worst offenders in the workplace were the senior working mothers. Most of whom had nannies etc but they were always skiving off leaving everyone else to pick up. I KNOW that isn't the case everywhere, and when a mother has no one, than of course she must go. But I saw a lot of secure/senior women with paid help taking the piss and that really irritates the childfree. I can see that.

Also the conversational dominance. Education - anyone round a dinner table?

It got boring after the first paragraph or so. It was irrelevant, repetitive and she is clearly writing on a subject of which she knows nothing.

To the dull all things are dull.

That said, people who make "When you have children..." comments can be and have often been to me in my pre-children days, crassly insensitive.