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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To find this attitude incomprehensible?

128 replies

whoisasking · 21/05/2009 09:38

Article Here

(Apologies for linking to the Daily Hate)

I simply cannot imagine writing an article which contained the phrase: "I know that, if I were to lose one of my children, even if I were to lose all of them, I would still have my husband.
But my imagination simply fails me when I try to picture a future without my husband."

So, can any of you say that you love your husbands more than your children?

OP posts:
StealthPolarBear · 21/05/2009 12:30

Waldman posits that children who are made aware of their secondary rank in their parents' affections "are more successful, happier, live longer and have healthier lives" than those who grow up with different expectations."
I BET they don't, in fact as some sad posts on this thread show, they don't.
I'm sure DH loves DS "more" than he loves me (as some people have explained on the thread, it's different, unconditional, you're totally responsible for them...) and I'm fine with that. In fact I'd be worried if he didn't feel like that.

Greensneeze · 21/05/2009 12:30

lol, I just remembered my friend who when about to go in for emergency C-section said to her dh

"I want to be absolutely clear - if it comes down to a choice between me and the baby, I want you to save ME"

Morloth · 21/05/2009 12:31

I don't think you need to love either more than the other. As others have pointed out the feelings of love are very very different. I love them both fiercely but I don't have as strong as a protective urge over DH (I do a little though) and obviously with DH there is a sexual attraction tied together with the affection.

The "who would you save first thing" always confused me. DH is an adult and would be by my side trying to save DS - one of the reasons I love him. If he was incapacitated then I would try to remove DS from the situation and then go and get DH. I can't imagine living without either of them.

However, DS will grow up, he will start his own family and will draw away from me, which is as it should be. The plan is obviously for DH NOT to do that.

My DH is certainly NOT replaceable and neither is my DS.

Morloth · 21/05/2009 12:33

Greensneeze
"I want to be absolutely clear - if it comes down to a choice between me and the baby, I want you to save ME"

I said the same thing (without the c-section) but when I was pregnant/in labour then I felt I had priority. Feel differently NOW of course, but not before.

Don't feel at all bad about this.

LindenAvery · 21/05/2009 12:34

Agree with morloth and queen of harpies.

Greensneeze · 21/05/2009 12:35

ooh, Morloth, I wonder if you are my friend?

[spooky]

Merrylegs · 21/05/2009 12:40

"... like most mothers, I occasionally torture myself by playing the 'What if' game. What if someone were to snatch one of my children? What if one of them were to be killed on their way home from school? How would I feel? How would I cope?
I imagine myself aching with sorrow, consumed by the agony of loss. And yet, in these terrible daydreams, there always lingers a glimmer of light.
There is always a future beyond the child's death.
I know that, if I were to lose one of my children, even if I were to lose all of them, I would still have my husband."

Words fail me...

(Actually, I always thought Michael Chabon was gay. Isn't he?)

Morloth · 21/05/2009 12:40

Don't think so Greensneeze - DS was born in Sydney and I didn't have a c-section. I don't think there is anything selfish or wrong about a woman wanting to live if the choice comes down to her and someone else (especially if that someone is not yet born).

If you asked me NOW who should be saved if it was a choice between DS and I, then I would say DS. Out of pure selfishness, I wouldn't want to be alive if he wasn't.

MorrisZapp · 21/05/2009 12:43

Haven't read the article but it seems to me that the Daily Hate routinely allows platforms to women writers with views that the majority will despise, so that we can all have a lovely bitch-fest about the horrid, unnatural woman.

It wasn't that long ago they published the one by the woman who openly preferred one of her kids to another, complete with pictures and complete (of course) with novel to promote.

The DM are scum. Why print articles such as this? They do it to rouse anti-woman bile on their message boards which no doubt are lit up like Blackpool following this. If the Guardian did the same 6 years ago then they are no bloody better.

BTW, I did hear that more women die in house fires than men because they are more likely to run back for the children but it may of course be urban myth.

troutpout · 21/05/2009 13:01

Hasn't she already written a similar article (that we all indeed ripped to shreads at the time)?
Blimey..he must be well chuffed with all that public adoration every year or so.
I love you!...i love you!
Bless her....is she one of those 'surrendered wife' type people do you think?

pingviner · 21/05/2009 13:07

omg
in the second photo the husband has too many teeth to be natural -is he an Osmond?

as for the article, usual strawman, whipped up controversy to sell some piddling, pseudointellectual, navel gazing 'my experience' book, under the guise of being (shock horror whispers... a Bad Mommy) And peddled in the Daily Mail, not surprising either.....

I feel so cynical today....

Bleatblurt · 21/05/2009 13:16

If my mum said this about me I would be utterly devastated. I can't believe she has written this knowing her children will read it. It's one thing to feel like that (and I can't get my head around it) but to be so utterly selfish to put it in print... well words fail me.

BalloonSlayer · 21/05/2009 13:20

It makes me think there is something awful and controlling about him, that he makes her write this adoring shite about him to prove how wonderful he is. Or something. "It's six months since you told everyone how fabulous I am. Now get to it."

MrsMattie · 21/05/2009 13:24

Well said@MorrisZap

MorrisZapp · 21/05/2009 13:29

Thanks Mrs. I also remember it was the DM who ran the article by the mother who said that childcare was boring. Cue outrage from real, loving, proper women.

They do it to further polarise the childcare debate, and to set women further against each other.

It is disgusting imo. Barely a week goes by without them covering some aspect of motherhood (never parenthood) and they do it in the most confrontational way they can get away with.

If you're a woman, whatever you do is wrong by their judgements. They don't even like us drinking.

Frasersmum123 · 21/05/2009 13:30

What a Cow! I cant believe even if she thought these things she would let them be printed in such a public way - her poor children!

Frasersmum123 · 21/05/2009 13:35

She is obviously trying to flog some more of her 'books'

DunderMifflin · 21/05/2009 13:41

Why stop with just ranking her love for her husband above her children?

She should also do a weekly run-down of which child is top of the love chart - 'For forgetting to do his cello practice or clean his teeth, this week's number four is Tarquel... But for clearing the table without any fuss - straight in at number one it's Jocasta!'

(Should be said in a Fluff Freeman voice with TOTP theme music in the background, of course! )

WalktheLine · 21/05/2009 13:45

This kind of story always reminds me of Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

LaurieFairyCake · 21/05/2009 14:17

I love my husband more than dd - not for any of the mad, crazy reasons she listed, nor would dd ever know as that would be wrong.

And if she was in a burning house dh and I would both run in to get her.

Jux · 21/05/2009 14:34

I love that pome WalktheLine.

dollius · 21/05/2009 14:44

My paternal grandmother used to say that she couldn't understand why people got so upset about children dying - after all "you can have more children", but you "can't replace a parent". She was apparently devastated when her own father died.

My father is very emotionally unstable and is certainly dependent on alcohol. I know it is because of his mother's coolness towards him.

My mother (also dependent on alcohol and also rejected by her mother) made it clear she put my father first - she still rants at me for "competing" with her for my father's love when I was a teenager.

Not surprisingly, I also have mental health issues. And I am certain they are 100% down to her.

I adore my DH - more so since we had children - but we both know with absolute certainty that the children are more important than either of us. I can imagine life without my DH (although it's sad to do so); I can imagine wanting to die if I lost my boys.

StealthPolarBear · 21/05/2009 14:47

LFC, do you mind if I ask why?

Original poster
whoisasking · 21/05/2009 14:50

LFC, But the scenario isn't that. The scenario is if there was a fire and your DH and your DD were in a burning building, who would you save first?

I'm really interested because I honestly would not want to live if one of my children died and as much as I adored my husband, I managed to cope, and got over it when he left me. I think I would have coped if he had died, but one of my kids? I don't think so.

OP posts:
LaurieFairyCake · 21/05/2009 14:52

Stealth - no, of course I don't mind

No real reason, I guess if I really think about it it's because we are a parenting team and everything we do comes out of our love.

Also dd is not our natural daughter though I have to say I could not imagine caring for a child more if she were biologically mine. There may be something (necessarily) primitively biological in a mother's (father's) physical love that explains why everyone on this thread so strongly loves their children more.

I hesitate to say that though, as I really can't imagine caring for a biological child more.

I have no coolness towards dd, sorry you had such a hard time dollius, that's a terrible story.