Guardian Family: Confessions of a Full Time Mother

[morningpaper]

Confessions of a Full Time Mother

"Kirsty Gunn is not working on her next novel. She is not a columnist for the London Review of Books. She has chosen instead to disappear from the professional world and embrace a domestic life just as rich and interesting and inspiring ... "

PAH! She's opted out of the professional world - well except for this article and the book she has just written about her "year as a full time mum" - full time that is, except for the 30 hours a week that her children are at school in which I presume she fannies about writing drivel like this.

At first I thought it was an ironic joke, but sadly not. Perhaps she is friends with that woman who survived the concentration-camp conditions of Fulham after that breeze blew her wooden grapes off the sideboard...

[SSShakeTheChi]

that really is a difficult read. I couldn't continue beyond my desire , my burn.

My burn?!

[morningpaper]

I feel a bit like a burnt-out husk.

Do you think that's it?

[emsiewill]

Glad I wasn't the only one to read this and think "wtf?"

A load of old rubbish

[Tinker]

"My husband weeps, quickly and quietly at the nursery school door when dropping off our youngest daughter"

It's called relief.

[foxtrot]

so she doesn't even do the school run then??

[Tortington]

i have 3 school aged. with 2 f/t working parents.

i live in a warzone. why is this? we are barely here?

[Tamum]

Oh dear god. It's like some kind of pretentious sixth former's poetry (I thought that even before I got to the actual poem).

"make lists for my day each day: Millie, 50p for a school project; Katherine, farm outing on the 28th. Bring seeds and twigs and cereal cartons to school on Monday; all water bottles to be named, please ... "

-- err, yes, we have to do that stuff whether we go to work or not, but it's hardly life-consuming, is it?

[marthamoo]

PMSL, Tinker

[beansprout]

I was deeply moved by the touching insight she shared with us all. I didn't know how it felt to love a child before I read this (at 5am this morning, what a poncey old way to start the day).

[Freckle]

How do you "feel my breath on their necks"? Surely they'd be the ones feeling it??

[DeviousDaffodil]

I feel really sorry for her.
She sounds like she is having a really hard time.
Imagine she might have to do her own cleaning on top of all the other stress.

[marthamoo]

Shall we write one...

Ds1 calls me, urgently, from downstairs. My heart - just for a moment - flutters at that knowledge - that I, and only I, have chosen to be the one to fulfil his every need, to soothe his fevered brow. I gird my loins, prepare myself for whatever dread event has befallen him. Ah...the relief. He can't get the lid off the PVA. Disaster averted...til next time. And now - my heart leaps again - ds2 is calling me..."Mummy! Mummy!" "Darling! I come to you! Mummy is near!" Quickly seizing a pile of freshly laundered washing from its customary pile at the bottom of the stairs I dash, with no thought to my own safety, back upstairs. "Mummy! Is my bottom clean?" - my beautiful child, the fruit of my loins, my reason for being, is waving a piece of pooey toilet roll at me...how lucky I am, that my day is punctuated with such precious moments. I hug my good fortune to me like a security blanket. I am truly blessed. What demands will my precious offspring make of me next...I only know I must meet that challenge, for my name...is sacrifice.

[Brangelina]

Lol Marthamoo, couldn't have put it better myself.

I actually thought the silly woman (not Marthamoo!) was on acid. She couldn't possibly have been sober when she wrote it, could she?

[Tinker]

Brilliant Mrs Moo

[CAMy]

Unreadable.

Will A must be gay.

[corkgirl]

its will self i bet

[CAMy]

Don't think so because he's a dad, he wouldn't be so wanky, unless of course he was being sarcastic to someone who is even more up herself than he is

[Tinker]

No sextusyllabic words for Will Self

[SSShakeTheChi]

"weeps quickly" If I had a dp who could adjust the speed of his weeping, I'd make a bit of money on the side with it somehow.

[Itsthawooluff]

You know you've been reading too much MN when you start reading an article like this and think "wtf - where's cod when you need her"

[hatwoman]

agree with the unreadable comment. read half the first para, skimmed the second. gave up. (and that was before reading the comments on this thread)

[CAMy]

We need custy's view here

[SSShakeTheChi]

LOL just IMAGINING her response

[CAMy]

Ah, she's already posted

[Snaf]

I reckon even our esteemed C. Phillips would blush at the thought of getting paid for such a load of pretentious old flapdoodle.

Women like this make me seethe, actually.