To think that this Times article about selfish mothers is vile

[mumbot]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/janice_turner/article6916343.ece

A bitter and one sided view of motherhood. Do you agree?

i think you are wrong about her PW

spend time with tremendously privileged,well paid,powerful people-a journalist?haha they are not that well connected or pivotal

this was social observation about modern manners not searing socio-economic commentary

I might be, obv. I don't know her. But I just never see the behaviour she's describing among the parents I know in my slightly down-at-heel area.

struck a chord of recognition about egocentric parents

A few of the answers on here do rather bear out JT's argument. The idea that NOTHING is harder than having 3 under fives, for example. Yes it's bloody hard but harder than dying painfully from cancer or being paralysed from the neck down (like some blue badge holders)? Come off it.

I see it all the time where I live pw - but then I live in Kilburn - where the terribly poor live cheek by jowl with the 139 'buggy-too-big-to-fit-on-a-bus' parents.

The article was sloppy and trite. It read like a less amusing version of the tirades my closest friends send by email while they are bored at work. The author did not even bother to check her facts - the quinny zapp is much smaller than anything on the market in bygone years.

Of course, whoever wrote that note, was ignorant, etc. No reason to believe it was a parent. Let alone a woman. No reason to imagine that the note writer was representative of new parents today. In fact, JT knew well that most would condemn the mean spirited little scrawl, and that very few would feel that their convenience took precedence over the genuinely less able.

And how is it relevant that the style of buggies has changed in the ten years since she had her children? My MIL and aunties regularly bemoan how they had to manage with enormous Silver Cross style prams because that was all that was available in their day. Monstrosities that took up more space than any modern buggy. Fashions and technology move on over time.

I am very glad that Janice found motherhood a doddle, but the reality is that for many, maybe even most, that is not how it is. Many of us have no support from extended family. Some of us live our lives in a haze of exhaustion because our babies never sleep for longer than 45 minutes. A few of us manage children with higher levels of needs. Some of us struggle with PND, SPD, or continence issues after birth trauma. Janice was lucky. Of all the new mothers I know well, only one or two had a relatively easy time. For some people, it is bloody hard to cope with the housekeeping and shopping "while caring for one small baby" let alone combining it all with a demanding job. Sometimes when it is overwhelming, hard to cope, you might be oblivious to the fact that you and your pram have barged aside a judgemental middle-aged times journalist, who is seeking material for her next column.

this article has touched nerve for some though.dont find it contentious at all

I am bored. And annoyed that some people are lucky enough to get paid for the ill-informed, and badly thought out ranting so many of us do for fun.

That times article also spitefully lumped in breastfeeding in church (surely a personal bugbear for the author?) with changing "a nappy on a pub table at midnight". My 90 year old grandmother has expressed her approval of me breastfeeding in church and tells me it was the norm when she had her babies - an easy way to keep them quiet for the service. Not everyone feels the need to pass judgement on new mothers who are just trying to do the best they can, not always getting it right.

The note was awful, obviously. However that was a very small part of the article.

The thing I got from the article was that, as a mother of young children, the note was in some way my fault. That I am personally responsible for making other people's lives difficult. That I am a self-centred bitch, that every time I go out with a pushchair I am making problems for others.

The article made me feel deeply uncomfortable and really depressed.

FWIW to the author (she is probably reading after all) last week I left church to go and BF on a bench in the graveyard in the pissing rain. DD and I both were soaked but there seemed to be no other option. That was the right thing to do, yes? As anything else would have meant I have a sense of entitlement?

In fact the whole article was confusing. I shouldn't catch buses? Or have a pushchair? In case other people get annoyed about it?

I agree ImSoNotTelling as if we any more people making us feel like that

ISNT

I got from that article that I shouldn't take up public space, that if my baby and I inconvenience others in any way, it will be judged more harshly for some reason. The author's overwhelming support on here, and in the Times comments, also left me feeling uncomfortable.

But, for God's sake, feed your baby in the church. Use your pushchair and catch as many buses as you like. IME, hardly anyone is petty enough to care what we do, so long as it does not significantly affect them. Even if it means they occasionally find themselves stepping aside for a tired mother and her pram.

Of course, if the major newspapers keep trying to stir up grievances, where none previously existed - we may no longer be able to feel entitled to a little kindness and tolerance.

I think some of you are probably taking it waaaay too personally. And very much too literally. I didn't read it like a criticism of being able to bf in church at all - just that things have moved on rather a lot and that's great. But that doesn't excuse the sense of over-entitlement.

Yes some mums do get PND and SPD. But the vast majority don't. And being a parent really isn't a massive fucking drama.

(FWIW I am a single parent who had a CS and such bad SPD that I couldn't stand a week after birth. And I still think that some new parents are drama queens)

Some new parents are drama queens

It doesn't mean that new parents these days have grown more entitled than they were when Janice Turner had her babies.

Some OAPs are drama queens, and even some non-parents too.

I can only say how it made me feel.

I was looking at it again to see if I had taken things the wrong way. And for eg

"A family-friendly faith is universally preached: you can breast-feed in church, let your toddler eat at The Ivy, take your Year 6 son to a White Stripes gig, change a nappy on a pub table at midnight and few would dare to suggest that this is not the right place."

That is not saying that things have moved on and that's great. It is saying that those things are bad. There is not another way of reading it.

At the end: "Yet, for all these gains, do parents ever express gratitude or grace? Instead, their dissatisfaction fed by the family-feeding companies flogging them bigger people carriers, flashier prams, they lament only what they lack.

So your baby woke you at dawn, you?ve gained a stone, you?re short on sex or fun or ?me time?. Shuffle the playlist, sister. It will pass, all of it, quicker than you think. And the decades will dissolve until you too are struggling across a supermarket car park, barged aside by pious pram-pushers, and wondering how it came to be that caring for your own progeny comes with a free pass not to give a damn about anyone else. "

The article does not say some parents. It is talking to all parents, well mothers, in the first person. It is speaking to me, I am who she is talking about. We are all who she is talking to, and the things she is telling us (me) are awful.

note on car was plainly A Bad Thing but too many generalisations in this article

'Yet, for all these gains, do parents ever express gratitude or grace? Instead, their dissatisfaction fed by the family-feeding companies flogging them bigger people carriers, flashier prams, they lament only what they lack.'

er...all parents? really?

and I might be wrong but she almost sounds as though she begrudges the gains that have been made...because they were too late for her, maybe?

and with so many here agreeing with her every word, just who are all these parents with their over-inflated sense of entitlement, hmm?

but yes there are some very large buggies out there.
We hardly need an article in the times to point that out....

I wonder if it is because the article writer has spent time on MN that she believes parents have this sense of entitlement. While most posters on MN do not behave this way, there are quite a few posts written on MN by people who do think they are entitled to special treatment because they have children, or that the normal rules of society do not apply to them or their children.

I rarely see parents behaving this way in real life, although I occasionally do.

I agree with earlier posters on this thread; some people have a huge sense of over-entitlement and having children puts them in a position where their assertion of that over-entitlement becomes more obvious. But it is not the fact that they are parents that has made them like that in the first place.

I also think that referring to every poster who you don't agree with as having a sense of over-entitlement has become rife lately, and that it is becoming a general insult and is losing its specific meaning.

It's a polemic. It's necessarily one-sided. It's supposed to engender debate and get you frothing over your latte. It would be a bloody useless article if it were all 'on the other hand I accept that most parents are really wonderful and very accommodating of everyone else'.

That's what a 500 word (or however long it was) opinion piece is supposed to be like.

Although I agree with quite a lot of the sentiment behind the article, I totally agree with what ImSoNotTelling said about the tone and how it made me feel.

I suppose I have some sympathy with her complaint about enormous buggies on buses, my heart sinks when I see one as I know that I will have terrible trouble fitting my own (as small as is possible umbrella fold type) buggy next to it in the buggy space. But still - if you have a large buggy and need to take the bus what else are you supposed to do?

The thing I really take issue with (rant alert....) is her assumption that those of us with buggies don't really have a right to go on the bus with it and that we should all hoik out the baby and fold our buggies. Actually it makes me want to cry!! Personal experience I'm afraid. Every morning I have to take the bus to drop my 4 and a half year old to school (she's in reception). I have my 2yr old and 7 month old in tow. Baby in the buggy, 2yr old has to walk. You would not believe how unpleasant the rush hour bus crowd are. I know the bus is crowded, but my daughter has to go to school - don't I have as much right to be there as everyone else? Clearly not, given the looks I get. I can't carry the baby in a sling (I have tried this) as the whole journey there and back again ends up being an hour and he is HEAVY and my back hurts. There is no way I could physically manage to fold the buggy and keep control of them all.

From the looks I get, you'd think my sole purpose was to inconvenience everyone there, it's as if me and my children should not be travelling at that time. Do they really think I would be on the bus at 8am with 3 children under 5 if I didn't have to be??!! Sometimes I feel so sad and angry and other times I am practically reduced to tears by an unexpectedly lovely person helping me out and being kind. Regarding children sitting - I totally agree with the point she makes and as such my 4 yr old nearly always has to stand. But my 2 yr old has to sit, she really really does. She's little and falls over and is squashed amongst all those commuters. So I have to ask someone to give her a seat (cue more nasty looks). The only people who voluntarily give up a seat for her tend to be old people - i.e. the very people who really ought to be sitting themselves.

On another note, does anyone mind about bf in church? I've done it once or twice and have seen others doing so (various different churches - although mainly weddings christenings etc which I suppose are more child friendly). I've never noticed anyone so much as bat an eyelid. It's not in anyway disrespectful provided you are discreet - ISNT, please don't ever sit outside in the rain again - park yourself at the back or behind a pillar if you feel a bit uncomfortable and make sure you have a large scarf or pashmina to drape over yourself.

Yes some have that over entitlement thing. Someone at a work thing kpet rubbing her pregnant tummy and going out to the loo in huge drama queen fashion the other week and I could just tell she was really milking it at work... of course the bottom line will be she'll bunk out of a career and earn very little so in a sense there is always a pay back if you're like that.

People should think about what they can give and how they can serve than what their entitlement is.

Agree about bf in church. Only a loon would object to this, provided discreet. Who wants a hungry distressed baby in the congregation when they could have a contented quiet one?

Have been reading the comments. A lot of people really really hate children don't they.

Sadly people really hate DCs because of the parents! I don't think that anyone minds polite, well mannered DCs but unfortunately many parents can't or won't control their DC, and expect everyone to smile indulgently at bad behaviour high spirits.

I know when I was out today with my 2yo and she was walking quite slowly she got glared at by quite a few people even though I was apologising to people as they went past. She was walking quite slowly and is of course quite short but I guess she was getting under people's feet which is why I was apologising. You could tell how angry people were about it though. We were keeping to one side and there was plenty of room.

Only other options are to make her go in a pushchair which would be even worse as takes up more room, or not take her at all which is what quite a lot of people who responded to the article were saying was the right thing to do.