to feel guilty that I'm not a stay at home mummy living next to the sea who bakes and knits?

[ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight]

Well. I just looked at the mummy blog of an old uni friend. She has called it something really quite twee. I was scoffing a bit at the lentil weaveryness of it [bitchy emoticon], it's very 'we love to live as naturally as possible, today we knitted our own home baked bread' but actually then I thought it looked lovely and her DCs are probably having an incredibly lovely childhood. They live in a little village near the sea, she posts every single day with pictures of crafty lovely activities, unlike me who works and is lazy with DS and lets him do 'free play' (apparently that's an actual thing, not just being lazy) and we don't even have a garden DH takes him to the park and nursery do crafty things but I feel a bit lame.

Tell me that DS won't mind? I'm having my first serious attack of mummy guilt and I feel a bit crappy actually. Also I'm going back to work full time in May, DH will have him 4 days and 1 day in nursery, I need to for financial reasons, if I do we should be in a position to have DC2 next year, it all makes sense but I'm wobbling about only having DS 2 days a week

I'm a SAHM, and of course this lady is only blogging the good bits! My biggest fault as a mother being a SAHM is without a doubt the amount of time I am sat in front of the computer! Thankfully I limit it to mumsnet, one or two other favourites and e-mail. If I had a blog as well...that time on the net would double, surely!
The moral of the story is: don't look at other people's lives and compare yourself favourably or otherwize, because there will always be people out there doing certain things better or worse than you!

StPAtrickategreenLentils
"That slightly off-centre relationship to a place in the community drives a certain percentage of people to try to be hyperauthentic, and could easily fuel that bloggish persona of someone at one with house, environment, children and universe"

Now that was a fascinating insight. That is my profound thought to think about today.

I only work two days a week and only went back last month after DS2.

I constantly feel guilty about my joy at getting a break from the house and then wonder why no-one else feels the same.

The reality is no-one else around me has started to have babies yet and so they see my life as totally idealistic & heaven forbid I be the one to burst their bubble with the reality of parenthood.

I'm def not one to compare myself, I might go insane if I did, since all my friends still have flat tums lots of disposable income and can have a leisurely lie in on a Sunday, (jealous moi)!

I just can't help feel a bit pressured when my friends are all telling me how good my life is, its like I have no right to find my "idyllic life" difficult.

I think women are always going to be in turmoil and you should def not berate yourself for making choices for what is best for your family.

I also agree with what was said before, if your blogger friends life seems to good to be true...it probably is!!

Kids don't like crafts, knitted clothes and lentil bakes. That's what mothers like.

Kids like amusement parks, track suits and battenburg. It's our job as mothers to train the towards more wholesome activities. It's not our job to self-flagellate on the Martyr's Cross of Aspiration

While I agree with you on the (hand) knitted clothes and lentil bakes, I disagree on crafts. Lots of children adore crafts.

My DD hated Disneyland! She likes pretty clothes (so tracksuits are as vile as hand-knitted clothes in her mind) and proper cakes that taste of more than fat and sugar.

Children aren't born with inherent bad taste! They develop bad taste when that is what they are constantly exposed to by the ambient culture.

There are so many of this type of ultra mother blog now. This type of blog which carves each word and measures each entry against certain invisible standards - money, time, aesthetics etc
Wittering on and on....

It's all one big fantasy - based in reality of course- but created none the less. I like the term hyper-authentic.

my dd quite likes it when i knit things for her.

there was the terrible case of the beautifully crocheted bolero which she only wore 'when no one could see her' ouch!

Hand knitted stuff is sweet for under 3s (in good soft non-itchy wool). They don't know the difference and it looks cute.

yes ok, kids like crafts, but in my experience they don't have to be wooden, woolly, organic crafts, they are just as happy with a bag of assorted sitcky fluffy things from poundland than anything else.

And as for being born with good taste - they aren't. My mother baked every week - I LONGED for Cadbury's Mini Rolls. I HATED Nice Ham, much preferred Spam. I was bought a £50 green waxed Barbour every year when I DESPERATELY wanted a pink coat from Woolworths. I always had prperly fitted Clarks - ditto with the Woolworths.

Bonsoir, I was given quality all the time, and I simply didn't want it. I wanted TAT. Vast quantities of TAT.

yes coldtits my mother was the biscuit and tray bake queen, all i wanted was a packet of digestives.

We can't all live at the seaside & my favourite childhood memories don't involve baking or home knitted clothes....

I,m with Milly R on this one.

Just remember the 1970s. How toe curlingly embarassed are you at the thought of the home made sensible cardies you wore. Would you put your children in them?

Well would you

i do put dd in handknit cardies and very nice they are too.

Another thought - if your friend's life is so perfect why blog every day?

why not get off the computer and do something more interesting instead?

Perhaps because she doesn't have anything more interesting to do?????

yabu to feel guilty, we are what we are and there is no fixed blueprint for a perfect family

LOL at your title though - I work half-time, live 25 minutes from the sea and can bake but not knit - do I win a prize?

Been thinking about this thread, and what I remember most from my wooly-SAHM who baked-living in the middle of nowhere childhood was desperately wanting St Michael's crisps like some of the kids in school whose parents went shopping to M&S in the nearest big town (over an hour's drive away) had in their bags for after swimming. I just got fruit, or some homemade cake made out of oats or something...

I wonder what my children (who are being brought up almost as wooly-ly as I was) desperately crave? Perhaps I should ask them...

mine craves monster munch and sausage rolls in her lunchbox, trips to toys r us and anything with hello kitty or barbie on it....

Whoever said "a bit gutted to see that someone not particularly nice from my old uni days is doing very well."

I know that feeling only too well. I count Rachel Weisz, Emily Mortimer, Emilia Fox, Nat Rothschild, Rosamund Pike and Natasha Kaplinsky, as well as a host of other extremely successful bankers/lawyers/people on telly as my old university friends and coevals.

I remember one horrid day I was temping and going to work on the underground to a new shitey assignment to see three film posters featuring girls I knew from college as the stars.

Then I got to work (it was shortly after my father committed suicide so it was an awful time anyway) to find some twat I used to poke fun out of at college was the boss and boy, did he take delight in giving me some dtp to do.

God I can almost taste how shit that felt.

my children crave computer time, cheese strings and those weird funny coloured marsh mallow twist things (flumps)

This is because I ration computer time, have a bee in my bonnet about not paying for things to be cut up for me when I have a knife at home (chicken breast, stewing steak, cheese portions, fish fingers), and always say "Oh no, have some chocolate, it's much nicer for your teeth"

They want what they can't have.

Doubtless if I had actually been GIVEN what i craved as a child, I would have desired warm feet, a waterproof coat, and a packed lunch that actually filled me up!

i agree CT, luckily they believe they are allergic to monster munch and that sausage rolls are only for special fridays. and they are too young to buy their own tat.
I always craved pot noodles as a child - we only had home made stuff and they looked soo sophisticated to me.

The modern 'Blog' is tantamount to one of those bloody awful 'Round Robin' notes with which we are often plagued at Christmastime....they are cringeworthingly naff and trumpet all manner of crap! Not a fan of either...its all contrived to make the 'BLOGGER' sound interesting, and invariably just makes them sound incredibly self absorbed.

Coldtits ..so I' m not the only one whose children get pushed towards chocolate then ?
My mil doesnt understand that at all...

another sahm who lives by the sea here... cant remember the last time we went to the beach though !

Doris Bonkers that sounds like the plot line of a film

Doris Bonkers, you must be due a lottery win or something!

Just wait until this woman's kids aren't malleable little beings who like sticking and colouring, baking biscuits and going for little toddles on the beach to look in rock pools anymore. They'll be moaning like hell that they're stuck in a boring little villge in the arse end of nowhere with sod all to do. I bet you their childhoods won't seem so incredibly lovely to them then.

You hit the nail on the head there.

I lived on a remote farm near a remote village and was glad to go to boarding school. It had no heating, broken windows and beds that the British Army had rejected but at least it had people who were not related to me.

Teenage life in a remote place is hell.