"Mothers, stop moaning!" Guardian article directed partly at MNers

[MrsJamin]

here

What do we think? Is she justified?

Personally, I can see her perspective, and utterly empathise, but I still think that we have the right to discuss our parenthood problems on MN, even if she doesn't believe that mothers ever have the right to have problems or discuss them. She is expecting wrath from us, so let's surprise her shall we?

Speaking as a happily childless woman (of 46) I'd say she needs to get a fucking grip. Or a dog.

precisely, its the day to day things that grate, so if you work in a jungle every day you moan about insect bites and failing equipment, if you live in a city you complain about seats on the tube, live in the countryside you complain about rights of way.... yes there's bigger issues in the grand scheme of things, but...

She's a writer with no children, I bet she complains about daily niggles related to her daily routine. But mothers shouldn't? Mothers should just get to the final destination that is giving birth and stop being human, and unlike everyone else should just be humble and grateful for everything 24 hours a day

That's a great book, Greythorne. I hadn't thought of it in years. I remember laughing out loud to it. Did you know the author didn't intend it to be comic?

"We all need reminding once in a while of how lucky we are to have children and we should never take that for granted"

speak for yourself!
I don't! I think every day about the hugeness of the life I brought into the world, of how prescious he is and how much I want a full and happy life for him, EVERY DAY this overwhelms me, brings me joy and TERRIFIES me in equal measures. I just don't bang on about it!

I do feel sympathy for the writer - I can only imagine how devastated I'd have been if I'd been unable to have children. Sometimes Mr Right fails to show up in time or indeed at all.

However, context is everything. I can't really think of anything better to say about this than Pag on the first page of this thread.

I thought it was a good article.

< puts on hard hat >

I felt like that before I had DCs because I thought I wasn't going to be able to have any.

12 years later and I STILL won't park in parent and child parking spaces because I remember how angry they made me. I used to think: parents are the luckiest people in the world, how DARE they get given special parking places right next to the Disabled ones (and sometimes closer to the shop than the Disabled spaces). And yes I KNOW they are only there because parents spend so much money the supermarkets are trying to attract them, but it still fills me with rage even now.

Reading the article brought back those feelings from the past most poignantly.

Of course I always feel rationally - and I expect that woman does too - that everyone has the right to complain about something. Yet I know that irrational feeling: "What the hell have YOU got to moan about you lucky bastard" very well indeed.

and I don't know any pregnant women who take it for granted either and need to be reminded either, most are busy nicker checking or kick counting and feeling the fragility of it every day

"Yet I know that irrational feeling: "What the hell have YOU got to moan about you lucky bastard" very well indeed."

I think most people do know that feeling, I felt it when I was told I had early menaupause (wrongly, it turns out!), but you've put your finger on the issue, its an IRRATIONAL feeling , and while you're feeling it you also know you're being irrational, I know what it's like to HATE pregnant woman you see in the street, really really HATE them - but all the while I knew the problem was mine not theirs!

so say there was an AIBU saying AIBU to feel irrationally angry at parents in parent spaces at the supermarket, I'ld bet most would say YANBU, its perfectly understandable to FEEL that way

it WOULD however be unreasonable to ACT on it, like the author has done.

At then end of the day, she's another childless person having a pop at mothers. She has no idea how hard being a parent is.

Her article smacks of yet another person who would be a perfect mum,mwith a perfect baby who will sleep through, never have tantrums etc etc.

V odd that the article says:

'Mothers are treated as superior citizens.'

I heartily disagree with that statement.

I don't think so Highlander.

I think she's just grieving. She'd love to find out how hard being a parent is.

No, I wouldn't Mary, but I also don't think I would have got into her position (if indeed her only fertility issue is age).

Maryz, I sympathise with her. It's not quite the same as agreeing with her.

And tbh I am pretty sure she wouldn't swop with me.

I agree with BalloonSlayer.

Why should she accept her situation with grace? She is angry. Justifiably so.

I have posted many times about my feelings of disappointment when finding out DD was a girl; my feelings weren't rational. I was upset, angry, depressed.

I needed to feel all of that in order to come out the other side.

Maybe she does too.

and if you do agree with her POV, there is a better way of putting it across, a better writer could have done this

e.g.
when DS was 3MO a woman sat beside us in Costa, she was smiling at him and struck up the normal conversations baby admirers do "what age?, name?, is it your first?)
when she went to leave she stood up and told us that her only child had died when it was the same age ours was then, and it was good to see parents like us who really enjoyed and appreciated our children.

She didn't TELL us to appreciate our child, she just said we obviously were, which was something she liked to see having lost hers (as opposed to I suppose children being ignored and barked at)

That was nice, I felt sad for her and lucky and all the rest of it. The Author of the article does not make me feel anything except a bit angry at her!

I knew the moment my son was born that I would have to pay a price for the intense love I had for him. I would have to leave him one day. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't depressed or navel gazing all the time. I was just aware that nothing that wonderful comes without pain. I knew I'd have to stay alive as long as possible, preferably forever, to be with him. If I was to avoid the unnatural horror of losing him before I died, I'd go before him and he would have to grieve me.
Very moving perfumedlife and so true.

She is a bit too cros tbh. But one of the things I do find wierd about MN is the way you get people who are seeminly surpsied or even expecting gold stars for having children 'as you live changes'.

Umm, duur! I also don't think people having children (planned anyway) unless they want their life to change. So the complaints are a bit odd.

I have every sympathy for her.She has wrote about her infertility in a very articulate and moving way.
I have been in her place and totally understand the range of emotions she describes with heartbreaking accuracy but we chose to adopt and i wonder if she had considered this.

But why shouldn't she be angry?

Not everybody who suffers a loss or is unable to have children behaves or feels like the woman in the cafe, ImJustSaying; unhappily childless people do not owe parents anything IYSWIM.

Well I have a moan every now and again.

I lost my DD to cancer. It was hidious.
I have an OH with a degeniterive disease
I have a disabled DS.

They are not the things I moan about. I moan about lots of trivial things.

Why shouldnt I?

Is it not also placing a huge amount of pressure on women with fertility problems? So if they try for 10 years to have a baby and are eventually sucessful are they expected to STFU about any little niggles? Should they pretend to the world that all is rosy because they have to grateful?

Sorry to bring down the tone but Big Fat Bollocks.

I am sorry she cant have children. I sincerely mean that.
But I also realise that people with teenage daughters want to have a rant and I wouldnt think or say 'how dare you , my DD is dead, think about ME!'

I should add that I do lose patience with people who insist on telling you 'I have 2 under 5,8,9,20' or whatever as if you should hand them a medal, carry their shopping home and cook them dinner.

@OhDOAdmit I think that is a good point. Lots of my friends lost parents when we were teenagers and got v cross when I moaned abotu my parents.

It made me quite cross becuase, obviously they had had an awful time, but it didn't stop my parents behaving nightmarishly (imo).

Bollocks, MrsDeVere, I was counting on using that when I have DD2 in a few weeks