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Mumsnet full of inane females according to Petronella Wyatt

212 replies

scaryteacher · 02/03/2012 10:22

www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/9115575/The-state-penalises-women-who-are-childless-and-unmarried-I-might-be-single-but-Im-not-a-failure.html

Methinks she protests too much and should get out more. Isn't she the one that had a thing with Boris?

OP posts:
ArgyMargy · 03/03/2012 10:29

Scuttlebutter - the fact that lovely women like you are part of Mumsnet (so must like/value it??!!) just proves how bonkers Petronella's rant is.

Astronaut79 · 03/03/2012 11:12

Is she the same woman that was complaining in the Guardian family pages last week?

Not read the article or all the posts Blush, but as the only one of my pre-baby friends to have had 2 children (and at 32 I'm not particularly young), I find that it's me that gets left out quite a lot - especially nights out etc. Not only that,but I feel out of the loop.

And as for economic benefits, how does paying double childcare and going part time help me there?

SpringHeeledJack · 03/03/2012 11:21

that was a different one, Astronaut

she also complained about lack of online support for the child free, and bitched about MN- she'd obviously never bothered to come in and actually read any of it. Now, I've been round here a while and reckon my postings about the dcs must count for about 5% of my output- and I don't think that's unusual, either

Southwest · 03/03/2012 11:26

SACs do have much better holidays though

Astronaut79 · 03/03/2012 11:28

And can choose clothes without wondering whether you can: get sick on them; bend down in them; do the splits in them whilst you simultaneously cling to absconding toddlers and runaway pram..

SACs don't look at bloody old either.

Trills · 03/03/2012 11:29

No, I think holidays are better if you are childless but in a couple.

SpringHeeledJack · 03/03/2012 11:31

Agree with all the above.

Also they can go out whenever they like

Southwest · 03/03/2012 11:35

Actually all that time in the sun..........

Agree Trills being in a couple gives you company but I had some fab holidays pre dh.......

Although I'm no expert I did once have a brief moment when I was sad that I no longer was eligible for an 18-30 holiday and wonder whether I could get them to make an exception!!!!!!!!

It was very brief

SpringHeeledJack · 03/03/2012 11:39

much as I adore the incessant company of my children I would love to go on holiday with dp and/or a suitcase full of books

toptramp · 03/03/2012 12:02

I do agree with the journo that single, childless women are persecuted. All too well to be in denial if you are married and sprogged up. I am single with child; I'm discriminated against.

Astronaut79 · 03/03/2012 12:05

HOw are you discrimintated against, toptramp?

SpringHeeledJack · 03/03/2012 12:08

single with child has to be the worst deal I reckon, tramp

for sheer hard work- coupled with being demonised in the shite press

toptramp · 03/03/2012 12:25

Well married women have called me a spinster before. And unmarried women for that matter; horrid, outdated word. People at family gatherings never ask me about my job or anything about myself for that matter; they turn to my married sister instead. I feel that they think that I have nothing to contribute. Don't get me started on the daily mail. People have honestly asked me if I live in a council house or if I intend to live in one!
I've had a few snide comments. On the plus side some have been really supportive. It's not like I have chosen to be single. I am just unlucky in love.
One single mum friend was asked by a married mother "But didn't you want to do it properly!"
My cousin, on hearing that I got a new job said "You are not like most single mums; you want to make something of your life!!!"

merrymouse · 03/03/2012 12:56

"But SACS do have dependants, just like other women. Often they are elderly parents (I had been giving part of my salary to my widowed mother), but we have no husbands to share the financial strain."

I think she might be a little confused.

A husband/civil partner is likely to bring their own own set of parents/elderly cat/ward/ n'er do well relation to the partnership. Husbands aren't generally orphans in a sports car with a trust fund, I have found.

animula · 03/03/2012 13:14

Lol that women with children are "inundated with support". Oh yes. so inundated. Mumsnet's existence hardly qualifies as being "inundated". Seems to me it was set up independently and is still struggling to support itself as a long-term concern.

I read that article and decided that PW's "friends" sound desperately rude. Why does she hang around with people who say such offensive things to her?

I'm not even going to bother with all the stuff about women's wages and careers taking a big hit after having children, or stats about violence in the home increasing after the arrival of children.

Nor am I going to say anything about who's interests it might be in to set one class of women against another.

Just remark that I regard this article as a small and unusual insight into the social mores and habitus of a section of society I so rarely meet - because I am far poorer than they are.

Lawks-a-mercy! Them's posh folk - who'd think they's is living in the same city as me and all? they's so fine and diff'rent! but ... aw ... all that money and them's still sad. Well. bless me, I'll just thank the good Lord for what I has and not be jealous of them's that has more because they's not always blessed with what they's has!!

But, isn't her hair so soft! Looks like a queen or princess or fairy or summat, she does! There's me, with my rough hands, but I feels like a princess with my lovely children and my little home, that I keeps nice and clean misself.

animula · 03/03/2012 13:19

Toptramp - that article suggests that you - single with child - are higher up the social totem pole, and lower down the totem pole in terms of discrimination, than single women without children.

I'm sure you are absolutely revelling in how much easier your life is - in terms of showers of support - economic, practical and emotional - than it was pre-children/child.

And yes, I have my sarcastic face on there.

Having children is lovely. But acknowledging that there is an aspect of "blessing" to this is not the same as signing away the need for more economic support/social validation for those (predominantly women) doing the parenting.

So much of that "support" is fairly vacuous and so often does not play out into economic and social parity.

It's sexism - and setting woman against woman isn't really going to help.

RedHotPokers · 03/03/2012 13:39

I think Petronella needs to get some nicer 'friends'.

RaPaPaPumPumBootyMum · 03/03/2012 13:47

animula Grin

NowThenWreck · 03/03/2012 15:46

toptramp When ds was a baby I was asked by a relative if I had a social worker! Because I was a single mum. And yes, people do assume you are automatically entitled to a council house. God, if only!
I have a number of childless women friends in their mid thirties and they are starting to feel the pressure now I think, but generally it seems that it is personal pressure e.g children are something they do want, rather than societal pressure.

LineRunner · 03/03/2012 18:39

SAC was when I had the most fantastic holidays and trips abroad because you can get off with anyone.

aquashiv · 03/03/2012 19:41

Poor woman she needs a good shag.

Haberdashery · 03/03/2012 20:41

I don't see how she can even be entitled to £65 a week in benefits if she's got a mortgage of that size, frankly, which must mean she has a fairly large income in order to have got it in the first place. Her figures don't add up. My mortgage is just over half that, I have a child and I am entitled to no benefits at all bar child benefit which is shortly to be removed. I would be entitled to the princely sum of about £500 per month (a fair percentage of this would be council tax benefit which I would never personally see a penny of) if my partner were to suddenly vanish into thin air. I know because I have checked. She sounds completely deranged. But I'm sorry for her that she has such horrible friends.

PoppadumPreach · 03/03/2012 21:56

as someone who spent a few years thinking i'd be single for ever, and then once married, that i'd be childless, i actually have a lot of sympathy for this women despite not agreeing with her synopsis of mumsnet.

i am now very happily married with two wonderful DC and i feel utterly blessed but also amazed that i ended up here. society does really look down on single people and i think we should be sympathetic, rather than smug.

LineRunner · 04/03/2012 00:03

When I was SAC, I had more money, more free time, more laughs and much much more of an academic career.

I did have converations with friends who said things like, 'I resent having to pay taxes to send other people's kids through school.'

But if those same people's parents were old, and ill, I didn't resent paying taxes to look after them, when I was well.

If we are all in it together, then we truly have the best system, bar a bit of tweaking.

scottishmummy · 04/03/2012 00:03

she's right
all humanity here,the indignant,the inane,the serially offended,the conspiracy theorists,the funny lassies,the update pleeeeeeese posters, the mascara queens, the troll hunters,the trippy hippy baby wearers

that's why it's funny

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