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A pretender for the Burchill crown?

188 replies

monkeytrousers · 03/09/2005 11:15

nice of her to put so much effort into it..

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caligula · 03/09/2005 13:46

But did she have a mangle QoQ?

We didn't have a washing machine till the eighties, but there were 2 launderettes in one street at the time. (They were much more common than now, for obvious reasons.)

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QueenOfQuotes · 03/09/2005 13:50

no - she washed all the clothes by hand

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Cam · 03/09/2005 13:52

Bet she had a spin dryer then?

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QueenOfQuotes · 03/09/2005 13:58

a spin dryer - lol - she got one of those when we finally got a washing machine in the 1980's (I remember we she bought her first microwave too and I sat on the kitchen floor in amazment - aged about 4yrs old )



Mind you her skills came in useful when she visited us in Zim, our maid (I know sounds posh - but very common out there) was on holiday so mum did all the washing of clothes, sat at the tap outside in the garden

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HunkerSorryGiraffeTrollMunker · 03/09/2005 14:12

Why? why am i norty?

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SherlockLGJ · 03/09/2005 14:19

Only joking


Must have got the wrong end of the stick last night.

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aloha · 03/09/2005 14:27

I think she completely fails to address why women stay at home (apart from using abusive terms such as lazy and spoiled for controversy's sake and also, I suspect, because she hates women). Stuff like: the sheer cost of childcare, the horribly unfamily friendly nature of much work, the horror and stress of trying to pick up kids from school when work finishes at 5.30/6/7pm and school finishes at 4pm, the fact that despite getting homne at 7pm women are supposed to feed their kids nutritious food/supervise homework/encourage their physical/social/academic/emotional development. Read to them. Listen to their problems. And summer holidays - what are you supposed to do with your children?
Yes, some women with kids get their nails done once in a blue moon, but guess what - so do women without kids....women like...Carol Sarler! Anyway, wicked mothers who have their nails done and maybe even - shock - have their hair cut sometimes.
I BET she has no kids or could afford at f/t nanny. She appears to think that once children are over three they stop needing to be cared for.

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HunkerSorryGiraffeTrollMunker · 03/09/2005 14:27

oh my name. I am a very norty troll, yes. but hunker wasn't really upset, she was joking!

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SherlockLGJ · 03/09/2005 14:32

I know, takes more than that to upset our HM.

I was just tickled that you got busted so soon.

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Janh · 03/09/2005 14:35

In the 50s my mum had a Hoover machine - a tub with "agitator" on back wall - and that did have a mangle! (Although she called it a wringer, presumably to distinguish it from one of those ancient cast-iron things that stood outside)

Anyway ones like that were still in use well into the 60s - she eventually got a Rolls Rapide twin-tub, can't remember when. They used to be advertised in ¼ page boxes in Saturday's Daily Express and getting one was a big deal (and they cost 2 or 3 weeks wages.

Dunno how old Carol Sarler is? Agree it is a very snippy bad-tempered silly-season piece!

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giraffeski · 03/09/2005 14:38

Message withdrawn

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RachD · 03/09/2005 14:38

Julie 'jealous' Birchill, then ?
She describes a day as a SAHM, but in the life of Victoria Beckham.

  • not enough hours in the day to fit in her 15 beauty appointments, prior to having her acylic nails done.
    She is so ignorant.
    She obviously thinks that all other SAHM's routine is the same as VB's.
    But then Julie Burchill wouldn't know any different, would she ?
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giraffeski · 03/09/2005 14:41

Message withdrawn

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Cam · 03/09/2005 15:23

Sorry, Aloha, Carol Sarler has no children ?

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Cam · 03/09/2005 15:24

Then how very dare she?

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happymerryberries · 03/09/2005 15:37

While I think that this writer has her head up her arse when she talks about current SAHM, her description of motherhood in the 60s is quite accurate when I think about my mother's life at that time.

In the 60's we doidn't have central heating and my mother would have to light the fire most days unless it had 'stayed in' banked up at night. She would have to bring the coal in from the shed at the bottom of the garden.

We didn't have a fridge or a freezer until the mid 70's so shoping was done every day. She did cook from scratch,m but the meals were basic and no exceptions were made if you didn't like it, it was eat it or leave it time.

We started off with a boiler and a mangle, has a twin tub....god what a luxurty that was but when I broke we couldn't afford to fix it and washing was done in a large enamel bowl on top of the cooker (thinking about the risk of this with kids around is making me feel ill!). Doing the washing was bloody hard work, but we didn't wear things just once and then expect it washed as we do now. Washing was not done in the laundrette, there wasn't one where we lived!

I'm sure that people did have labour saving devices in the 60s, but my mother wasn't so lucky. And far from being 'bohemian, my mother would have given her eye teeth for such help, she was just poor!

And just to add to the 'Hovis ad' feeling of this posting , we didn't have a loo in the house (it was at the bottom of the garden) until I was about 12! But we were lucky, I had friends who still used a tin bath in the late 70s!

'And you tell young folks today, and they just don't believe you.'

PS my Grandmother never had any electricty in her house at all, and had a tin bath.

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edodgy · 03/09/2005 16:25

Ironic that she concentrates on the poorer sahms of the 6os but then compares them to the middle class sahm of today just shows how inaccurate her argument is.

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caligula · 03/09/2005 16:39

Good point edodgy. Because let's face it, she's not describing working class SAHMs in her article, is she.

Silly cow. Must say that again!

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happymerryberries · 03/09/2005 16:44

Quite!

Mond you if I had told my mum that she was poor in the 60s she would have treated me as a raving loon!

As far as she was concerned she was living the life of luxury comaped to her mother who raised 4 children as a lone parent in the 30s

My mother considered us to be 'comfortable' because she could feed us with relative ease, take a weeks holiday in Tenby each year and most shocking of all, she bought her own house!

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Tortington · 03/09/2005 16:56

i like her article and i agree with the "message" she is giving rather than the detail.


there is an evergrowing army of mothers who do call themselves sahm's but....their not really. they are using a fashionable lable of the moment. whilst little cassandra is at public school they drive their 4 by 4 to the gym - get their hair and nails done and Oh my work the exhaustion.

why not say - look i am "RRAEi" rather rich and enjoying it.

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monkeytrousers · 03/09/2005 17:28

Too late Sherlock. Dr Watson was on the case before you!

Whatever point she might have had is lost in all the bile. There must be a headhunter for The Mail around was my first thought. Or Melanie Phillips wants a protégé. She hasn?t kids of her own, has she? She can?t have. Her opinion on this is a relevant as Anne Widdecombe?s on the Marquis de Sade

Those wonderful days, he 60s, before feminism changed the world. Yes Carol, bring ?em back and put women backing their place where they belong!

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monkeytrousers · 03/09/2005 17:29

BTW, where have you been Caligula? You've been very good lately. I've hardly seen you!

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Nightynight · 03/09/2005 17:38

The basic point she's making is true though, that sahm's do have more free time than is needed for childcare, and in most cases for housework too,and have had ever since hoovers, fridges etc came in, whenever that was for different people.
Whether you choose to stay at home, or whether you can't afford to go out to work isnt really the issue.

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edodgy · 03/09/2005 17:41

Yes but nighty night that is defining childcare as doing household tasks what about playing with your child, I know i dont spend as long washing and cleaning as my mum but i also have much more time to play with my daughter and take her places because of this ,I consider this childcare. This woman is assuming that the time we dont spend cooking and cleaning is used to pamper ourselves when in reality this is not always the case.

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beansontoast · 03/09/2005 17:46

another pointless post from beansontoast..

as soon as i saw this article this morning i thought of MN

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