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.

and then they all went and sat in their cars (audis) and cried. obviously.

I read this article this morning and was going to start a thread straight away but have only just made it on here - and everyone else has said what I wanted to say, and much more entertainingly!

But - I hated the way she lumped all mothers in with her world view. I certainly don't wish my children were geniuses, neither have I experienced the relentless competitiveness she describes. I hate the way 'slack motherhood' is used as a disengenuous way of saying 'I'm so interesting and you, with your home-baked cakes and signed homework diaries, are so, so dull'.

My immediate cynical thought was - she knew it would lead to a long thread on MN, therefore more people reading the article, therefore happy editors, therefore more work for Lucy Cavendish.

I thought this crapulous article was going to be spiked, as everyone thought it was a pile of poo in the making?

nope, it could never have been spiked in time. the round table discussion was ditched.

Antoinette: I thought it had already been written - it was quoted from in the op of the thread inviting mumsnetters to discuss it with her.

this thread

Oh x posted. The discussion was ditched you say?

loving the car article

yup, i think they said postponed but the feel was that they'd seen the mood and realised it was a non-story. i have been chuckling all week at the fact that i am clearly a FRAEK for never having cried about what a shit mother i am.

100x and LeSinge.

I want someone to make a counterpart to the Daily Mail Headline Generator, that would make stories like Cavendish's or that one from yesterday's Guardian.

hahaha yes that would be great. it's a WAR out there.

Yes, I wondered about the label erratic as well MP.

Then I read this line "Working mothers, in particular, spend most of their lives in a state of miserable guilt."

What nonsense is this? Given that I don't feel remotely guilty and never have done, am I now supposed to feel guilty about not feeling guilty?

There isn't a war here. There's a world of different views and attitudes to mothering. But that's not a war. That's just variety - people doing what's right for them.

It's a bit of a nothing article.

'I do think there is some truth, in some womens experience sometimes, within what she's saying' -

yes Brideshead, I agree with you! I think that too, and as MP says, esp early on when you can feel more vulnerable and less confident.

Would be easier to consider and think about that and why it is so, under a different headline - and without the mum's in fatigues battling with a washing line though.

i think it's perfectly reasonable to be hurt by that comment, but i don't know why she's taking it out on US. she should just have said 'a-HEM'.

mixed article.some good points.some cliché

It's those ridiculous Observer photos that get me. They always appear in the Food magazine too-things like that Henderson bloke on a meat hook.

That photographer is sooooooo frustrated.
I can imagine him weeping into his Rioja and banging his fist on the table while bellowing
'I'm am an artist!!'

They are so bloody clunky and obvious in manner of Lower Sixth art group.

I was thinking last night, that what is faulty is thinking of Motherhood as a status or identity in itself.

Actually motherhood is about a relationship isn't it, as surely most women know?

If you want to sell things to mothers - it helps to make it a status. It's hard to sell to a relationship.

But surely it isn't about the externals - the raising of a perfect genius or cup cakes or wanting their dc to knock all others into a hat.

There's the extra stuff that comes with it - the hope, the decisions, the washing, school parent evening. But it is wonky to think that it's the EXTRA stuff which defines motherhood. Which is what this article was suggesting, I think, and if you think that, it can only breed insecurity and nutty unhappiness. It's all backwards thinking.

It's like saying, Why Bitter Infighting is Making it Harder than Ever to Be a Husband.

What is a 'husband'? That's a relationship with someone, not a point of identity in itself. Ditto mothers.

Ahundredtimes - that is it.

I've never thought about it that way before but it makes sense.

Now that perspective might make interesting reading.

we have stopped buying weekend papers, so liberating.

Looking at your car piece - v.good- it's almost like we approach our children as consumers. Like they are products to be moulded - what does my child's life say about my status and identity as a Mother? Do they get cupcakes and Kumon maths? Is that our status?

But am probably just being a twat. Not had much sleep.

haven't read the article but would just like to say that it's a fucking fairy cake, not cupcake.

AnABetaDad, are you my DH? as he cannot drive and doesn't have a car either. And is Northern. If you are, stop dissing me about the time I spend on MN

yes smallorange - or arguably, that people approach us as consumers, and then some women believe the fear and anxiety which are attendant with that.

If I buy this, I'll be a better mother. If dc does that, I'll be a better parent. Then it's all angst and misery - as LC points out.

The women on these boards who are saying, 'what? It's not like that' are those that - perhaps - take what they need and want, but don't believe the status hype.

And certainly aren't at each other day in day out in some rush of competitive paranoia. Which is, arguably, a much more sensible way to be - and a lot more usual, I would argue.

Anyway, I think it's all been very interesting. And I hope LC doesn't take any of it personally, it's not meant to be personal at all. For me, her article has provided v interesting food for thought, and interesting to see how motherhood and women are portrayed a lot of the time.

I'd like Anne Enright to write a piece - or anyone actually - about how being a mother is actually quite fun and interesting and complex, and what a leveller it is, and how it gives you access to all sorts of women you wouldn't have met before, and how what is key is the relationship, not the status acquisition which goes with. And how - hopefully - most women know that, and how those that don't might like to remember it.

I think you (or Singey) could do just as good a job as Anne Enright 100

I'd like more Anne Enright on motherhood in the papers.
Bemused by use of word "strands" for "threads" - made it hard to concentrate on article.