Times article ' Life is a see saw for working mums ' a book written by succesful working mother - comments please

[CaptainUnderpants]

Times article

Anyone read it ? Has this been written by a well known mumsnetter ?

I do like the bit that you and your partner must get away at least twicw a year without children for at least three nights !

Her DH is the one that has given up work !

Starbear - yes it really is that good!
Have you looked into evening classes or the Open University - my mum did her degree with the OU - took her in the region of 20 years I think as she kept packing it in and then doing another bit but she got there in the end!

Bumper - you don't need a magazine - you can get just about all of that from Mumsnet!

Personally I buy the Radio Times and Private Eye on subscription and I buy what dh calls 'Posh parent' - Junior and Junior Pregnancy and Baby - if I happen to see it when I'm in town. I buy it only to sneer at the designer mums designer nurserys! Ok and I like the shopping and celeb stuff as well....

Bumper you should go into publishing. I would buy that mag.

I am PMSL at all this. Ladies, I will seriously go into premature labour if this carries on.

BTW, I have just chucked Esther Rantzen on the bonfire because she was rude to me once after I had done her a favour so she qualifies because she is from North London, she chatters, and she is two-faced.

Starbear OU is brilliant. They have great materials etc. Top quality education.

Actually that would be a great magazine feature 'And on the Bonfire this week......'

Julia Hobsbawm's other child is called Anoushka....

God we should so do this magazine idea. Much better than my book idea by far.

It sounds like a sort of anti-Women's Hour.

I love magazines as I read them instead of getting on with housework. I read the Times at work and rudely,(I just don't care) tell colleagues NOT to speak to me while I'm on my lunch break reading. 45 mins of shutting their mind out of mine. I'm a little Dyslexic so it would take me 20 years to get a degree (funny, I've written that word so often recently I can spell it!) I want to be a tourist guide. I know I need a foreign language and history degree OH! Another article 'Small steps to achieve..... different topic every month.

starbear have a look at this

Ta! Who need a magazine when a website like this answers all your questions. I think I have to get assessed. Thank you so much. I'll do the research during the first half of the year and sign up in September when DS starts school anyway. DH got his 2nd degree with OU but has no problems with spelling has been brought up to be quite dogged about studying (He also didn't have a kid then)Small steps I think. I'll report back as time goes on

I was thinking as I typed my list I get nearly all of that from mumsnet, but there is nothing like having a magazine in your hands is there.

I love mags, but never buy them anymore as they are too expensive and trot out the same tired old rubbish:

Need some time to yourself? Have a bath, swap babysitting with friends

Drink hot water with lemon juice for a daily detox

Make sure you drink 8 glasses of water a day

Burn more calories by chosing the stairs over the lifts, trying doing bottom clenches while you are washing up

Buy this moisturiser that costs £90 a pot but I got free

How to spot when someone is lying

Try this really easy recipe that requires a special saucepan and ingredients you've never heard of

Swap: one box of after eight mints for carrot sticks and hummous and save your self 456,000 calories

Same old shit, different magazine. I want something intelligence, non patronising and written by people in the real world for people who live in the real world.

Additional highlights of my mag:

Language lessons, a monthly phrase guide

Dinner party discussions, a different monthly topic to hold your own in a conversation at dinner parties (or with your baby ) e.g. art history in a nutshell, why we should/shouldn't join the Euro, Tough on crime or tough on the causes of crime? A bluffers guide to Shakespeare,

And a monthly feature called 'Why we shouldn't listen to parenting gurus, especially those who don't have children'

So, anyone here work in publishing? I can feel a collaboration coming on!

Oh a Star from me on the language lessons.
I will still need house porn though!

Ooh Bumper, you were spot on there. Except you forgot gratuitous articles about storage. Yet again.

You also know it's the season for celeb fitness DVD's reviews, Astrology and how to be positive.

Bumper, She at its relaunch was briefly as you describe. it was great.Then slid into bottom clenching and hot lemon territory.

Years ago Marie Claire was great (when Nigel Slater wrote their cooking stuff.I soooooo love him.)

SHE should get back to its clever women roots.

Now as a kid living in Aussie territory, Cleo and Cosmopolitan were unbelievably filthy-even for 1975.

Hey Pointydog what do you think? Unfluffy enough?

MarxAndSparx - I nearly didn't spot your comment - I'm still getting used to my new name (a bit like a new hairdo). Why do I feel guilty?

1. Because I'm back to work tomorrow and DH is dreading it, DS having been a little sh*t 70% of the time over the last 2 weeks. I have a much easier life at work and it seems unfair.

2. DS is being so clingy to me at the moment. I know it's probably just a phase, but I keep thinking it's because I'm out at work and he doesn't see enough of me.

Me being the breadwinner wasn't exactly the master plan. I always saw myself as the homemaker, it just didn't work out that way.

ahh! I didn't recognise you. I never recognise namechangers. Yes, the name's much better.

Is your ds very young, rip? Because once they're older, you stop feeling all that guilt at them not seeing enough of you. You realise it's misplaced. SHed it now.

yes, many years ago Marie Claire had some very good current affaira/world issues articles. Now it just has zillions of pages at the pack of plastic surgery ads

Just to announce Stepahnie "Confessions of a Bad Mother" Calman has just gone on the bonfire. It's getting to be quite a conflagration now.

I want to write the regular "Dad World" column for this magazine!

Can I put that financial whizz woman Holicks on the bonfire. Well done lady having big family and big wages but stop making comments on working women and going home at 6pm. Some of us serve the public in Emergence services and can't go home on time!
That's another point all the magazines assume that women work in offices 9am-5pm. So need office wear, heels and IT handbag. I wear big black boots and have everything on a black belt (so last century I know)

Oh god, yes, that Stephanie 'I can't cope so I'll leave my dcs with the childminder full time while I potter about the Starbucks of North London' Calman. What a load of patronizing shit that book was, almost lost the will to live halfway through it.