"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?

I think she has every right to feel angry at herself, other people, mothers, the man that she never met, the medics who cant get her pg, infact anyone she wants to.

But internal anger is one thing, expecting other people to shut up is another.

There are people in this world who are far, far, far worse off than this woman. She doesnt appear to consider their feelings as she has her rant.

Does she really feel like this or is did it just seem like a good idea for an article?

I dont read the guardian it brings me out in hives.

There is always lots of publicity about older celeb mums giving birth, cherrypieplum, I think it is quite easy these days for women to think they have got till well into their forties.

I recently found out that both my maternal great-grandmothers had babies when they were 48! This is very unusual but had I grown up knowing that fact I might well have believed that I could do the same. (As it was I had an unplanned one at 43 so maybe I am a "late bloomer" myself.)

I know a woman who had her first baby at 45 and her second at 47. Had she been the best friend of the writer of this article, again, she would have thought "if she can do it, so can I."

I think it's easier than you realise to think you have loads of time

I don't mean you Cavemum you really DO have loads of time!

MrsDeVere let's face it "Mothers, stop moaning" is a far catchier title than 'count your blessings' or 'please can people be a little more sensitive regarding infertility'.

sorry not "she would have thought," - "she might have thought"

dumb generalisation of mine

ballon I dont really like the blame her for waiting thing either.

I still dont like the article though.

True cherry. 'I feel very sad I will never be a mother and hearing parents discuss their family issues can sometimes be difficult' doesnt scan well either.

I read the paper in a cafe this morning and that article made me cry. It made me understand and empathise with childless friends more.

I think part of the problem is that its very British to moan. It's actually quite hard to talk with gratitude and joy at ones position in life without sounding like a boastful smug git. Look at V Beckham and her four children, she is not stupid and knows everyone envies her glamorous life with all the money so she tries to sound more normal and like the next woman, by whingeing a bit about her hard times.

I am very grateful for my life, my children, husband and I don't take for granted my happy marriage and easily conceived children. Recently I heard my kids got into our first choice high school. I shared this on Facebook. I didn't name the school, I didn't diss the second choice school and yet still I managed to offend some friends from our old neighbourhood and even though I took pains not to say the wrong thing, I still must have seemed boastful and so I ended up deleting the thread.

So the author of the article has all my sympathy and I am glad to be able to hear her perspective on things.

BalloonSlayer I know but there is a key word there- celeb. It's amazing what can be achieved when you have the cash/personal chef/nutritionist/

Lots of celebs get a big juicy sparkler I'd love and lose the two stone I'd love to lose but it ain't happened yet.

I actually got to my mid-20s and hadn't met 'the one' and after a serious of crappy relationships and jobs decided to broaden my horizons, get out there and start pleasing myself with holidays and what not. Early but I'd started to prepare in case the husband and kids weren't to be. I didn't want to be lonely and bitter.

As it happened I did meet the one and we're expecting a baby but even at my mid 20s I knew my clock was ticking.

It's easy to (somewhat smugly) say 'well if she had wanted kids she should have got on with it sooner' but some people genuinely don't want them (or don't know they want them) until they are a bit older, when unfortunately it sometimes is too late.

Should they have had kids (possibly without a partner) when they weren't even sure? Just a hypothetical question. It's easy to judge if you haven't actually been in that situation.

Not saying that is the case with this woman btw (haven't heard of her or read her columns before).

Her rant angered me a bit, I'd say she IBU. Yes she has a right to rant but she is mistaken on what a baby brings as others have said. And she is mistaken if she truly believes that by us 'complaining' of our troubles it means we don't appreciate or love our babies or being a mum.
We need to discuss our problems to help us overcome them, infact it's in discussing them I've seen many many mums realise they're not the only ones with that problem (whatever the problem may be) and it helps us all connect and helps us be better and feel better.

sofaslug (brill name btw-exactly how I feel today) no one can predict if they are going to end up with the life they want but she's saying don't moan about anything not even PND, if you've got the kids she so desperately wants.

As has been pointed out, someone could say, ok you're are infertile but at least you're healthy, got a roof over your head, etc. There's always someone worse off. I think by bearing that in mind, counting your lucky bloody stars and trying not to be hurtful to others might a bit better than saying 'you can't top my pain'

Oh sofaslug - I agree, but if that happens then you have to at least recognise that your choices had something to do with that. I know single people who were desperate to be a mother and have taken steps to make that happen. Nothing wrong with not doing that and instead continuing to wait, but had I waited until 46 to try for my first I would have assumed there was a good chance I wasn't going to get pregnant.

It's a bit like we chose to have ds2 knowing there was a high risk he would be disabled. He wasn't as it turned out but it would have been daft for me to make that decision then complain about everyone with non-disabled kids talking about them.

If a man with one leg got angry with people with two legs for complaining that their feet hurt; we'd let him be angry. He's got one leg.

I think this is similar.

cherryplumpie (thank you re name, it describes me exactly today too!) Yes fair enough, of course misery top trumps is fairly pointless and not terribly helpful to anyone.

I suppose if her article has a merit, it might make some people think about something in a way they otherwise might not have done. I can sort of see both sides, having had my child fairly late, then desperately wanted another but had secondary infertility. Of course it's grating and hurtful when people take their own fertility for granted. But you could say the same about anything - health, enough to eat, a safe place to live etc.

People don't allow that though tethersend.

I remember years and years ago on here when ds1 not being able to talk was still a big thing to me - I had a go at someone moaning about their child who didn't stop talking. I got a right mouthful and then some more, it was one of my early mumsnet beating and I was told it was very hard to listen to a child who doesn't stop talking. So no I don't think you are allowed to say (and certainly my anger was totally misplaced - it's why I recognise her feelings and say she needs counselling - but I shouldn't have said what I said on that thread).

A few years later I was complaining to my mum about ds3 who wouldn't shut up and she said 'well you'd be moaning if he wasn't talking' so I have been on both sides now (and tbh listening to a child who doesn't stop talking whilst irritating is nothing like having a child who can't talk, but that doesn't give those of us with non-verbal kids the right to get cross when people complain about their kids talking all the time).

Saintlyjimjams I was and still am desperate to be a mother but wanted to do it what I perceived to be the right way. The fact that I didn't get married until I was 34 has put me some years behind other people in the getting pregnant stakes. However I wasn't prepared to go around shagging anyone to have a baby.

So I am not sure it was about making bad choices as about trying to make the right ones for me.

I take your point, saintly- but you're still allowed to be angry about DS1 not talking.

Even though she's directing her anger in the wrong place, she has a right to be angry IYSWIM.

I had a lot of sympathy at first although I didn't like the tone of her article. I can understand that anger is a stage of grief and she is grieving the end of her fertility coming around without her having a child. Grief is something we all go through in our lives so we should have some sympathy. I didn't agree with her elevating being a mother to some sort of sainted position where you never complain or get stressed and men will adore and cherish you just because you have hosted a child in your uterus.

Anyway then I looked her up on google to see what else she had written. If she hadn't been shagging married men she might have had more luck meeting a man who was suitable for her to marry and have children with. But she decided to get involved with a married man, thus wasting even more of her dwindling fertility. There is some element of life choices involved in her situation.

saintlyjimjams - I think that is part of why infertility due to advanced years is a particularly bitter pill, not only do you have to deal with the reality of infertility, you also have to deal with the fact that it could have been different if you had realised and done something about it sooner.

It's sad that she is so unhappy. But other people complaining about their children isn't the reason she doesn't have any. If people stopped moaning about their children from this moment until the end if time it wouldn't get her pregnant. She might as well be angry at petrol prices being too high for her to drive to visit friends at the weekend to fill her single life when parents have all the company they need.at home.

Oh friendof dorothy I'm not saying everyone should go around shagging, but the fact that chose not to suggests that you weighed up and made that choice. Presumably you were aware that your decisions resulted in some risk to your fertility. She could have made different decisions had her fertility been the most important thing to her. As someone has said maybe she didn't realise she wanted kids when younger, but in that case it's still misplaced to complain when your fairytale doesn't work out at the age of 46.

As tethers has said she has a right to be angry about her loss of fertility, but she's directing it at the wrong people. (I do agree tethers - I'm not really angry about my son's loss of speech now, but certainly I was for quite a long time, but my inappropriate comment on here did help me realise it was my problem, not the rest of the worlds).

I do have some exceptions - if she has friends who know she can't conceive but are sharing every moment of their pregnancy directly with her then she has permission to poke them in the eyes as it's crassly insensitive. But getting cross with mothers complaining on places like mumsnet is misplaced, however painful she is finding it.

It's a lucky person who gets through life without any difficulties at all. We al have things we have to deal with. My life is pretty tricky compared to the average, but I look around me and see people dealing with far more than me all the time.

Ultimately you get one life - and you have to enjoy as much of it as you can it warts and all (well that's my philosophy these days - and something my wonderful ds1 taught me with al his problems - he has a great life as well - and he's never going to be a father!)

It looks like another example of someone assuming that the personal circumstances and decisions of someone else are a direct attack on their own situation or decisions. Which is of course illogical bollocks.

She is failing to appreciate that everything is relative. While I will never experience childlessness like her, I will and do experience the negatives of being a parent. That does not detract from her situation - it is comparing apples and oranges to try to do so.

I hope she is able to come to terms with her situation and find happiness. If she can realise parents are not the enemy then great but she is entitled to feel how she feels - even if it is irrational, illogical and factually inaccurate. I'm not sure putting it in the family section of the newspaper will help anyone much though.

I've made some bad career choices in my life. It has meant that I'm left without a career at all. I do regret it sometimes, and feel annoyed with people complaining about their jobs, but I realise that while I made the best decisions for me at the time, they were bad decisions in the long run and that's my fault, no one else's. It would be ridiculous for me to tell people to stop complaining about their careers because I don't have one.