Lucy cavendish in the Nobserver

[smallorange]

m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/28/motherhood-pare nting-debate-stayathome-lucy-cavendish

What do we think? I thought some of the people she spoke to had interesting views of motherhood today and middle class competitiveness.

But I don't recognise her personal experiences as like my own. And I suspect much of the country is just going about it's business raising children, paying the bills without much thought about baking cupcakes or kumon maths.

Arghhh! Trying to do it on phone.

m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/28/motherhood-pare nting-debate-stayathome-lucy-cavendish

Middle class self indulgence.
Knobserver gone completely down the shitter these days, more's the pity.

I think she makes ome interesting points about some experiences of beinga mother currently. Some resonated with me anyway like her own:

'For some reason I felt that if I ran a tight ship ? happy, clean children with clean fingernails, contented baby, happy husband who came home to a meal and fresh linen on the bed ? everyone would notice and say: "Isn't she amazing?" I soon snapped out of that. No one noticed, no one cared.'

I've had this experience. It took me several months to rialose that neiher the children or Dh care or noticed if I baked or bought, polished the wooden and tiled floors, reguarly cleaned the oven, more effcetively organised thier dranweres for thier convenience, changed sheets weekly without fail, ensured washing basket is empty every day etc etc, so I just please myself now and am rather more slack, but it all looks OK on the surface (I buy healthyish baked stuffed, change sheets when looking dirty etc it all looks fine on the surface) no one has noticed at all though.

I alos think some other more serious points abut our guilt and drive to 'achieve' in motherhood have some truth. Albeit in a middle class observer reading MNing type world.

In these articles the writer is always "talking to other mothers" don't they have friends?

Articles like this make the middle class sound deeply unpleasant, and the writer a needy whinger.

Yes it is all pretty ho hum really. I think Kate Figes pretty much covered it all in Life After Birth. And she considered a wide range of experiences. It's always a certain type of mother speaking in these articles- I would have liked a fresh perspective and some real issues aired - tax credits, fexible working etc

It is a strange article. It is littered with references to books, surveys, reports, etc but doesn't seem to come to a conclusion. It feels like she has done loads of research but then stutters to a halt because has no new insight to offer.

"..I suspect much of the country is just going about it's business raising children, paying the bills without much thought about baking cupcakes or kumon maths."

Yes that is true .... but cupcakes and Kumon were very common topics of conversation at the school gate where I used to live.

If I overheard someone calling me an erratic mother I would be sorely tempted to punch them confront them about it there and then! You should have gone the whole hog and named her in the article, Lucy!!

Articles like this are a major contributing factor to the condition they set out to describe. I'm so sick of them.

bloody hell, what a miserable article. I hardly identify with any of it, tbh.

I don't feel the need to do "competitive mothering" (but then DS is still only 2.3 so plenty of time!). I understand that some women have/choose to be WOHM and some choose/have to be SAHM and others do what I did - WAHM.

I don't have all this angst that LC suggests we all do, or this fragile sense of self that one of her quoted sources suggests - I know who I am, thanks.

I also think that the support available on MN outweighs the mother-bashing she suggests is so prevalent - yes there are a few people who are dyed-in-the-wool extremists for some positions but I have seen them be very supportive when needed as well. In the end, she's creating an artificial sub-group by talking about "mothers" in this way - it's all humans and we're as diverse a bunch as you could hope to meet.

Silly mare.

Next week: Men and Cars

What has happened? Men have been made to feel anxious, miserable and upset at their car choices. Autotrade.net discussion boards show evidence of a fierce raging dispute between engines - one poster says he was made to feel small and inadequate because he preferred the BMW S series to the L series. He found himself seriously examining his life choices.

He says he burst into tears in that very car.

An expert links men's anxiety's to their obsession with status. 'A man IS his car' one expert explained.

'I just use my car to get from A to B' a talented and serious novelist explained. SO why can't all men be like him?

actually sounds suspiciously true in some cases, 100x! Isn't a car just a penis extension for some men?

Yes, and you know what, I feel wildly confident that I can extrapolate from autotrade.net discussion boards that ALL MEN, every single one in the universe, feel eaten up with anxiety about their car choices. They're actually attacking each other, belittling each other, men are fracturing left right and centre because they just don't know how to be, which car to chose. They're all CONSUMED with envy and fear that other men are judging them.

It's a weird old weld and no mistakin

• the old "his car's bigger'n mine" neurosis, hey!

I know. And thumbwitch - it's spoiling this generation of men. Thirty years ago their fathers knew about cars, it was really simple back then. A man knew his car, and his car knew him.

But now. Well now, it's a WAR out there I'm telling you. A war.

Of course it's choice that's done it.

Back in the day - a man could only chose from a handful of cars. But now, it's Japanese this, and German that, it's American import or Swedish reliability.

The choice has spoilt and confused them - put them at war with one another, at odds with the world.

It's a real proper serious crisis.

arrrr - as you say, back then it was all so simple - all engines were equally hard work, there were fewer manuals, no "black boxes" for cars, one mechanic did every type of car, not so many specialists...

So true, so true. In fact you could go so far as to say that everyone knew their place.

When everyone drove a black T-type nobody felt insecure about other people's life choices. Men weren't reduced to tears because someone said their Audi had an 'erratic brake system.'

'I find it impossible to talk to other men about their car without some unspoken element of competition creeping in from both sides. Whether it's about choices around entertainment systems, spark plugs, fuel or even something as simple as the colour of the car you've chosen, we are all playing a desperate game of one-upmanship. For if our is cool and successful, or deemed by our peer group to be 'successful' then all the worry and heartache and sleepless nights and worry will have been worth it'

This is quite fun. I just can't imagine why nobody has written this article yet

• betcha neither the Slimes nor the Daily Wail choose to print these quotes in their next MN article!

I thikn you should write the article in full, 100x, and submit it. Then accuse them of sexism when they refuse to print it.

They would say -

but surely this is a phony argument? I mean it's not REALLY like that. Sure, men are interested in their cars, some more so than others. But you can't suggest it's some universal war being conducted in garages around the country, c'mon men aren't crying because someone dissed their Range Rover's traction speed - that's just DAFT.

And I could say - Uhuh.

it's got to be worth it, hasn't it - can you imagine all the readers' comments and outrage...

Really can't face reading the article (there was another one about competitive mothering in the Guardian yesterday as well YAWN) but did she quote any Mumsnetters? She was trawling around looking for people to "discuss" this with her on here a week or so ago.

Yes, I can!

It wouldn't make sense to anyone would it, they'd pick apart the writer and say he had serious isshoes, nobody they knew were that wound up about deciding what car to get - I mean it matters, they think about it, but they're not killing each other over it.

they could do a cool photo shoot to go with the article. Men in fatigues, and war paint, pulling down a sun roof.

I can see it now. I mean, if they'd print a piece about mothers being on the bitter front line, they'd do that one too, it must be universally true, when you look at the autotrader discussion boards - I mean there's some SERIOUS disagreement on there.