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Lucy cavendish in the Nobserver

79 replies

smallorange · 28/03/2010 09:47

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.

OP posts:
ABetaDad · 28/03/2010 17:21

Articles like this highlight symptoms of a great revolution and intense fear in society among a certan sub group of the middle class. It does not reflect the whole middle class.

The sub group is typicaly metropolitan London, bohemian, Islington, North Oxford. Typically they are people who had a very comfortable childhood brought up in a household where mother either didnt work or worked in charity or similar while Dad was something like an academic, writer, publisher, perhaps a doctor or one of the professions. Life was comfortable, not privelleged or upper class but enough money to have family holidays, buy a nice house in leafy suburb and near a good state Grammar school and on to a Russle group University.

They value educaton, they were well educated themselves but the job they do no longer pays what they feel they deserve given ther educational achievement. As a result, this sub class now feels threatened and frightened. Anxious they cannot give their children the certainty and comfort of their own childhood. The house they live is nothing like as big or sumptious as the house they lived in as a child. They cannot afford private school so they are forced down the route of having tutors for their children and desperate hope of passing 11+ o buying an expensive house in a catchment area. The intense anxiety of encroachng job losses due to the internet and globalisation plus the crippling costs of housing as they are pushed out by the hated bankers all leads to a sense of deep anxiety, resentment and fear.

It is mothers in this subgroup who perhaps feel this intensity of fear most and guilt they are not bringing ther children up as well as they should. Compensating by adopting a kind of faux bucolic life of pefect motherhood while desperately juggling the credit card bill and for ever comparing themselves with other mothers.

thumbwitch · 28/03/2010 17:27

ABetaDad - would you like to read ahundredtimes' suggested article on men and cars? am interested to see what you would make of it.

MamaMtundu · 28/03/2010 17:38

We had the sat Grauniad and Obsv this weekend, so I was already grumbling to see two articles on this tired old theme. I even thought I might pop on here and start a thread which I've never done, but found you lovely people were on the case already.

I LOVE ahundredtimes's men and their motors theme!

I really despair of this current media driven theme of SAHM v WM and "proper" v "slack".

I'm a bit "proper" and a bit "slack". Aren't we all!?

LC's article ends by wishing that more mothers were like the novelist Anne Enright who finds that motherhood has made her "...nicer to other mothers, wether or not they are my type"

In my experience, more of us, rather than less of us, are just like this.

ABetaDad · 28/03/2010 19:09

thumbwitch - is there a link to the article on men an motors?

Of course, I agree such an article on men and nmotors would be a huge generalisation about men and their relationship ith carss. Just as much of a generalisation as this article linked in teh OP's post was a generalisation about mothers. It reflects a tiny minority of mothers and is very London centred view of the world - as I said.

Anyway, I dont have a car and can't drive so does that mean and I dont have a ...oh no hang on ... no skip that thought.

bellissima · 28/03/2010 19:23

Hmm ABeta - you almost got me (direct grant and then Oxbridge actually - better described as 'a child who ate yoghurt and whose parents read the colour supplements in the sixties). But did those parents ever fuss and push and act as competitively as the affluent ones at my DCs private prep? er, nope.

tralalaa · 28/03/2010 19:30

ABeta.
gosh that's me. oh shit.

sprogger · 28/03/2010 19:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

smallorange · 28/03/2010 19:48

loving the cars

OP posts:
smallorange · 28/03/2010 19:50

Am also utterly bored with the whole mumsnet angst-fest.

Would rather read about men and cars.

OP posts:
bellissima · 28/03/2010 19:51

Yeah but not Jezza. Someone handsome.

morningpaper · 28/03/2010 19:59

I can see how a "new mum" might feel this way, but otherwise, I don't really identify.

I wonder if the entire thing is hung up on Lucy being called "erratic"? That is such a cruel thing to say about anyone, particularly in the context of their mothering skills. That would send me into therapy for months. Bastard!

ABetaDad · 28/03/2010 20:20

bellissima - no your parent's generation did not have to fuss and push. There was no need. If they lived in London probably had good jobs, rarely faced redundancy, and only paid 3 x salary for a house. It is their children who now feel the angst as adults and who are are the parents of the DCs at your childs Prep.

I was grant mantained and Oxbridge too but North Yorkshire - farming family going through the ringer of near bankruptcy. My parents were the ones with angst back then. I lived through it (so did DW) and so we have felt the fear as children. As a result, we sweat less now about this stuff than many of our friends who have never experienced it before.

ABetaDad · 28/03/2010 20:22

Not criticising or having a go or mocking anyone by the way. Just saying this 'angst' is a phenomenon I notice among friends.

ahundredtimes · 28/03/2010 20:22

I so agree smallorange.

Why can't men be allowed to be angsty in a broadsheet newspaper? It's not fair on them. They too should have the delight of seeing themselves reflected as mad, competitive and on the edge of despair re their life choices.

All that worry about coupes, that dread and gloom when someone's got a better performing car, a shinier hub cap. I mean it's a cliche - but that means it MUST be right, right?

I think it's really bad it's so over-looked - we've done the neurotic, warring mothers now.

We should stand back, let's hear from the men of the nation getting their neurotic knickers in a twist because another man sneered at his car

BridesheadRegardless · 28/03/2010 20:26

Are there talk boards where men belittle each others car choices, pick apart and judge each other on this, insult one another, more than just occasionally reduce each other to tears with feelings of inadequecy, and have a special thread where your car choice can be ridiculed and insulted in a free for all-AIBU style?

Maybe there is.

If there is it would make a good sunday supplement article.

But of course if there isn't, the analogy doesn't work at all.

ahundredtimes · 28/03/2010 20:31

It wouldn't be a good sunday supplement article Brideshead. It'd be risible - who'd believe it, for one thing?

Top Gear plenty sneery, y' know.

BridesheadRegardless · 28/03/2010 20:42

It would be risible and sneerded at as it's untrue. If there really was a social phenonemon of 'the men of the nation getting their neurotic knickers in a twist because another man sneered at his car' en mass, it would be interesting.

ahundredtimes · 28/03/2010 20:49

And you think that MN is an example of women breaking down and at war I take it?

Really?

Go read that Steve Biddulph nursery thread - different opinions, different experiences and acceptance of those differences.

ahundredtimes · 28/03/2010 20:52

Here [[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/935996-to-be-questioning-my-entire-life-plan-b ecause-I-read]

that much more illustrative of how MN works, imo

ahundredtimes · 28/03/2010 20:53

Sorry!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/935996-to-be-questioning-my-entire-life-plan-because-I- read

BridesheadRegardless · 28/03/2010 21:03

I've been here a long time and I'm aware of the many different sides to MN. Including the constructive debate and fabulous support, but also I'm afraid a tendency to descend occasionally into deep divides with vitriol, personal attack and insults being involved.

I can cut and paste the list of these examples I posted earlier if you're interested.

So, it's not the whole story, but it is a story.

ahundredtimes · 28/03/2010 21:09

Yes, I know that too. I do see that - but don't you think that is as much to do or more to do with how people behave on the internet as it is to do with the condition of Motherhood? I think it is.

You are right about the analogy, I accept that, it might not work.

But the article wasn't - A Day on MN, what can we learn about modern internet savvy mothers?

It was about the general experience of being a mother, not MN. Which is what I was trying to flag up with my silly car thing.

bellissima · 28/03/2010 21:56

ABeta - no we also lived oop north actually. My parents are also from Yorkshire. And I am unfamilar with your house price ratio obsession. And the pushy parents at my DCs (southern) prep school are not at all the kids of 60s 'liberal academics'. The worst ones are the suburban southern types whose 60s parents probably read the Daily Mail and Telegraph and commuted in to London from Surbiton - for whom even a Ski yoghurt and certainly Familia museli were unknown entities. The ones who agonise over their children's secondary schools, write their projects, arrange their UCAS-credible 'volunteer work' and even accompany them to open days at Oxbridge - oh and 'Russie' group (is that what you call it?) unis are hardly the children of 60s bohemians but more likely to be the children of those 'Weybridge Tudor' types.

BridesheadRegardless · 28/03/2010 22:00

Yes I think it may be to do with the internet partly, there have been lots of articles on Twitter and bulling lately too. (from men in The spectator, feeling rather hurt that would be a better analogy)

I accept the article is not about MN, but do think that MN can be used to illustrate the point.

But I also agree that if you have an article with some truth, that has examples that are only partially true, you can be said to really have not much.

I do think there is some truth, in some womens experience sometimes, within what she's saying, but agree it's not original or particuarlly enlightening in itself.

LeSingeEstDansLarbre · 28/03/2010 22:09

100x you are wonderful.

i asked my NCT friends today about this competitive motherhood thing, and they all said they really hate these types of articles. yes, i said, but i hate them more.