A journalist writes: why can't we all just be nice to each other?

[Gizmo]

Oh, the delicious irony.
From the paper that regularly brings you India Knight, John Simpson and various other commentators fulminating on what is wrong with modern mothers, here?s a prolonged whinge about how judgemental other parents are.
Another piece of lightweight, anecdotal journalism based on the fact that it sounds like her friends are a bit crap. Given some spurious authority by a quick telephone call to an author who may not be entirely unbiased on the subject?.
Yes, I know other parents make judgements (and ? newsflash, Ms Llewellyn Smith - not just about your children) but you only have to look at Mumsnet to know that they?re also a source of excellent support. Shame loads of new mums are going to be put off seeking this support by this load of bullshit.
Snort. Waste of newsprint.

PMSL! My formula-fed DD1 was NEVER ill until she was 9 months old, and then w/a 24-hour vomitting bug. She just caught her first cold last year - at the age of 2.5.

Some people are strong as mountains, Julia.

Others are weak as a bag of wind.

It's great isn't it? I particularly liked dear Frank's comment (paraphased): 'our grandparents would never have passed comment on the way other people raised their children'.

No? Well, my gran (and all her friends, and my husband's gran and all her friends) must be the exception to the rule then.

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what a horrible article

very smug

Not just "other parents" - she recognises that she does it just as much herself!

I'd have said that India Knight was more likely to complain that the world doesn't revolve around children (particularly hers) than criticise modern parenting - after all, she was the woman who tried to start a Name and Shame list of restaurants that were not child friendly, until loads of people without kids demanded a copy so that they could eat in peace!

Is she a MNetter or is just the zeitgeist (think that's what I mean!)? The piece echoes a lot of the threads on here recently!

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lol satine - thats funny!

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yes at least she shopped herself. slightly better than a lot of these articles IMO.

i wonder if she remembers reading Eight Cousins and other Louisa Alcott classics where parents are constantly warning each other against allowing their children to read low trash literature and use slang, about the nasty jailbait clothes that less fortunate girls wear - 'we were little folks until 18 or so' - oh yes. Not so different really.

YAWN. What a load of bollocks. Hmmmm seems like 'Let me write a piece criticising parents for being judgemental so I can get my own digs in and be judegmental.'

And what is she talking about here

"I am very laid back about what my kid eats ? I don?t do any of this Jamie Oliver stuff ? but I told this to a parent who was vegetarian and she was utterly shocked. It wasn?t a question of what I fed my child, it was because I was calling into question her integrity as an individual and her whole moral outlook and to her that made me an evil person." WTF? Couldn't it have been that she does worry about what your child eats?

Where do they find these crap writers?

I've met tramps w/WAY more talent and wit than most of the vapid journalists I see in print round here.

i read it as boastful too

I just felt it was a total piece of non news and a bit sad in that it gave no indication of the flip side of the judging: what a great source of support mothers can be to each other.

Of course people critique your child-rearing, just like they do your appearance, your lifestyle and your working practises. We can't help it as social creatures - nothing makes us feel more vindicated than that somebody agrees with us. Your only defense to it is to be sure what you are doing is right, and then, of course, you are a 'smug mummy'.

But the editorial illogic that allows that to appear in the same paper as regularly publishes India Knight! I'd say I'm speechless...but obviously not

I think it is quite funny really. Yes MN is a source of support and help, BUT it is also one of the most judgemental places I have ever known. You cannot be niave to think it isn't.

In RL my friends wouldn't say half of what I see spouted on MN, I have been called a child abuser on more than one occassion over different things. Yes we take the piss on some threads, but we are totally judgmental on others - some of the latest threads are about judging others you don't know.

I am really lucky that I am comfortable with my own mothering choices, but I do find myself thinking others are mad (behind their backs of course). Luckily with my close friends we all support each other and I wouldn't dream of suggesting my way is right or wrong.

However I still chuckle in private with DH about my brother and SIL, they are a peadiatrician and childrens nurse (now SAHM) respectivly and have set themselves up as 'Perfect Parents' - from the home birth to the no sweets, reading day and night etc - and yes they have children far worse behaved than mine They don't sleep well, they whine more and they are not great at behaving in public. I see my bro and his wife giving in to them all the time and organising their lives around what their dd's want. Hilarious Specially BC my SIL and I used to bitch quietly about my other neice who according to her mother, never had a tantrum!!! Selective memory

Oh sorry, potential hand-grenade in the middle of that bit- should have read:

'your only defence is to be sure that what you are doing is right for you'....

MN is definitely more judgemental than the mothers i meet in real life. now i am paranoid about the state of our house, hand towels, soap etc. before mumsnet threads on these things i would not have thought twice about inviting other people into our home. now i hesitate.

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couldnt even finish it...

i cant stand this sort of stuff presented as journalism...well even being in the 'news'

im not high brow atall...but thtas just a load of bollocky whingey ballbalhblah...get it out of the papers.

possibly KS.

Because, obviously, I am the one true holder of the universal truth of what is right in childrearing....

What Dior? You shop in Tesco?