mommies who drink

[oranges]

Doesn't this just sound like what we all do?

Quite oranges.
I am far from hairy toed brillo pad armpit harridan meself and certainly not averse to a bit of lippy or summat sparkly.
But as you say..it's so bloody awful and vacuous.

The 'skinted' and 'minted' part of the ST Style section.

I think, 'Well, this is the wrong paper for me because even the skinted one's a rip-off.'

oh i oathe Polly Vernon. she really has never matured, has she. and did she really say 'this book is important'?

I thought the Brett woman made a few good points but hey, we've already got Stephanie Calman who said them all about 3 years ago (motherhood is not automatically all consuming but there's a lot of pressure on mothers to forget they are human beings rather than service appliances etc). And I find OW mag maddening too: pages and pages of shopping crap - it would be more fun if they had lots of pictures of fit men with their cocks out - and frankly, that would be more radical.

i'd like to see some fit blokes with their cocks out.

now that i'd buy .

lol. But seriously, who are the mothers who find it all consuming? Most people I know get overwhelmed sometimes, when the babies are very tiny, and later if they are ill or unhappy, but I don't know anyone who thinks they've turned into a dishwasher (or any other service appliance)

'But seriously, who are the mothers who find it all consuming?'

And where are they finding all these publishers willing to put out all their self-absorbed, vapid drivel?

Kathy Lette wrote over the weekend, that stress is now always seen as bad, when it should sometimes just mean excitement or change. It seems to be the same with motherhood - its meant to change your life, in the same way going to uni or getting a job does. Not sure why that's such a shock to otherwise intelligent women (or their publishers).

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear: what I meant was it's OK to feel bored and restless when you've got a young baby and the mistake a lot of these journos make is believing that once you have a baby you have to stop having a life - and then find they are miserable. Not that many adults find total fulfilment in a life of nose-blowing and arse-wiping for no pay, and the key to surviving as a SAHM is to get out of the house and do stuff on a regular basis.

Oh but they don't think that they don't have a life.They're faaaar too busy writing patronising guff which purports to speak out on behalf of other women who don't have a life as they see it.

Me,I have a great life thanks very much.

I'm sending this thread to them.

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seriously, it was the observer woman that made me cancel my observer. in papers we sometimes derogatorily refer to the 'female' section as the 'wifies' pages', but never before has that been so amply demonstrated. never thougth i'd see the FeMail section in colour and in the Nobserver.

I've sent them the thread.
lol at 'fit blokes with cocks out'.

Quite agree viz Obs Women (and I work in the Obs' sister organisation, so to speak, and you are not alone in the view that it is unmitigated insulting crap, believe me). And quite agree re Vernon, and re the banality of the subject matter of the book. Against my better judgment, I read the piece yesterday, and (while I didn't end up throwing the magazine across the room, which is what normally happens when I pick up the benighted thing) I was gobsmacked to read her assertion that 'no one told me it would be difficult' (I paraphrase, but only slightly). Anyone who can reach childbearing age without having picked up on the fact that it isn't all skipping down the primrose path is, in my opinion, a chump.

given that observer woman is a pile of poo, what do you all think should go in it. (aside from fit men with cocks)

LOL at LoveAngel's comments over Agnes whatnot.

I wrote two emails to the editor of the Observer to complain about Observer Woman, prompted by one issue in particular where they referenced Kate Moss 7 times in 5 different articles. I feel exactly the same as LoveAngel. I am 39 and weigh many more stones than KM. I am long past caring that Kate is apparently silently semaphoring to us that skinny jeans are back in (or out again, or in again but only ironically).

This weird teenage obsession with models is unseemly for a paper such as the Observer. Also someone please throw Mimi Spencer into the canal. Dreadful.

Read about Mummies Who Drink but I don't think it sounds at all controversial in a UK context - isn't that what the whole slummy mummy genre is all about?

although i generally loathe observer women i laughed out loud on the tube this morning reading that article.

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I remember that piece Pruners, it was well done.

I'd just like there to be more decent journalism and less fluff in both the Saturday Guardian AND the Observer. I don't care what they call it so long as it's more interesting and generally less SHITE than most of the stuff they currently print (always excepting the sainted Dr Goldacre).

Went off Observer Woman after seeing an article titled "Am I too Old For Clothes?" in the first issue. Obviously all you over-forties should be running around starkers...

And I didn't really get why Mommy Who Drinks thought she was being controversial or revolutionary or whatever.

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"'Do what you need to do, have your life, be yourself, because I don't care. As long as your kid isn't hammering my kid's head into the sand in the playground, I do not care how you're bringing him up.' Which is the most sensible thing anyone's said on the subject in a long while.

Not it bloody isn't! It's selfish and stupid. It's important to care about other kids. Very much. However I don't think that article says very much that most mothers I know don't think or feel some of the time. There was a similar article in the Independent recently. And whilst I agreed with a lot of it my main reaction was 'so what?' - why does this have to be seen as a groundswell, or a change in attitude... or anything like that. It's just mothers coping the best way they can.

ok, observer woman or women or whatever it is is usually rubbish. i can't bear it. but ground-breaking or not, revolutionary or not, that piece from Brett Paesel was simply funny.

Agree muchly with Orm about caring about other people's kids. I am surprised at how acceptable it has become to say that you would happily pursue your children's wellbeing at the expense of other children. I mean, I know we all do it occasionally, but it should at least merit a pause for thought.

And yes agree pruners about the cost issue. Much cheaper to get Zoe Williams to write something unresearched and ranty.

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