Pramface Mansion

[000Laura000]

I think this is real...?

www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/beonashow/shows/pramface.shtml

Anyone fancy it?

[nappyaddict]

i would have liked to have done something like this ...

why are single mums called pramface?

[shedev]

to clear this up click the link to the definition of pramface www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pramface
But remember it was called that in irony??!!!

[shedev]

ok you can't click on it, cut and paste it for your browser!!

[nappyaddict]

so pramfacequeen are you a regular mner? if so ... who are you? i'm intrigued.

[Alambil]

I absolutely would not take part, simply because the editors will make it look like they are all fish-wife hollering slobs who "deserve" to be single because we are somehow second class citizens

I have got myself through university and am 1 year away from being a qualified teacher; I have done that off my own back and STILL people think I'm some sort of slut and below them because I'm on benefits (for a while) and live in a council house; I won't let anyone make me look like an idiot.

Sharing a house doesn't appeal either - too many women, too many hormones, too many people to tell me how to raise/not raise my son and that would do my head right in.

From here (sounds great - just great....)

?Nasty little breeders? no more?
Channel 4's Pram-face showed that single mums are now viewed as victims rather than villains. Is that really any better?

Channel 4?s Cutting Edge series last night examined a perennial modern-day folk devil: young working-class single mothers.

In Pram-face, documentary maker James Cohen followed the day-to-day lives of two 20-year-old single mums, Ala and Abby, over a six-month period. Ostensibly, the programme attempted to counter the relentlessly negative portrayal of single mums in contemporary culture. The documentary?s title, ?Pram-face?, is itself a reference to the derogatory slang coined by gossip webzine Popbitch to denote single-mum ?chavs?. It?s doubtful, however, whether this frankly dull documentary will do much to change perceptions.

Ala and Abby came across as self-assured and photogenic enough to dispel the stereotype of gormless Vicky Pollards put forward in Little Britain. And as they rather self-consciously and laboriously demonstrated, they don?t have horns and they do know how to change nappies. No doubt Cohen and the participants believed this would be a riposte to the anti-single mother lobby, but it only showed how far they themselves have come to be influenced by the negativity about these women.....

The main weakness was that it took media rants against single mothers at Pram-face value. To attempt to ?put the record straight? only gives credence to such saloon-bar prejudices. At different times over the past two decades, the bile projected against working-class single mothers has said more about the accusers than the accused. So in the Eighties and early Nineties, the social fragmentation fostered by the then Conservative government in the UK was routinely blamed on single mums? ?anti-family values?. For today?s New Labour politicians and liberal commentators, working-class single mothers constitute a ?health problem? because, we are told, they raise kids whose mental and physical health is apparently at risk.

[Alambil]

and if that is the press view already... we can only take an educated guess at the viewers response.

[Alambil]

oh, and after having looked at your link - how can you NOT take offence at the title of the programme??!

Irony only works if people "get it" - a LOT of people won't "get" this; they will take it at face value (I expect)

[nappyaddict]

i don't really get the term pramface. it is used because they are seen as just pushing their pram around all day? but a lot of mums do this - not just young or single ones.

[Alambil]

Because it is used to mock and is derrogatory:

"pramface

A woman who looks so young she ought to be pushing a pram around a council estate in the shittiest part of town.

1. pramface

A word used to describe young women who err, push prams. Often labelled as chavs for having children so young; as it has suddenly become acceptable for the middle classes to openly mock the working classes. "

[nappyaddict]

yes i know it is used to mock young, single mums but when you actually look at the word it could be used to describe any mum who pushes a pram around and i don't see what is wrong with pushing your child around in a pushchair. their are so many nicknames for people these days you can't get away from it.

[Alambil]

yes, there are - but should we just roll over and accept them?

Should "n*gger" be just accepted because there are nicknames for everyone nowadays?

Rolling over and just accepting it is a part of our lives is what keeps people downtrodden and keeps them "in their place" - kicking back against it is all people can do to change things and I'm sorry but I won't roll over and let myself be called that.

It may be that in real life a mother - married, single or other - pushes a pram but it is only single mums that are called such things.

Why, for instance are we "single mums" and not "stay at home mums" - it is another level isn't it; if you tell someone you are a stay at home mum, they won't judge you - they will think you have a lovely partner who is going out, working hard and you are able to raise the kids. Tell them you are single (or they find out) and you will be judged - why are you single, what about your income, where do you live, what the house looks like, what clothes you wear, what clothes the kids wear - it is endless.

Strange, but unfortunately true. And that is why I'm so upset (and angered) by a programme that is aimed to raise awareness using such a derogatory and insulting word as the title of their show - there were plenty others they could use, but no - they went for the insult.

[nappyaddict]

totally different to nigger imo. i have no problem with people noticing that i am a sahm and spend all my time devoted to ds. if people think this is a bad thing more fool them.

[Alambil]

"Rolling over and just accepting it is a part of our lives"

I meant as a part of our lives

[lostdad]

Then again...I've been called a visiting father', absent father', non resident parent', feckless father', part time parent' or deadbeat dad'.

Which is strange because I am still in the `family' home and the only reason I am not a fulltime or fully involved parent is because my ex won't allow me to be.

Swings and roundabouts. Why bother about what others call you? You know your own situation better than anyone else...and whether you're worthy of negativity or not - no one else.

[ZippiBabes]

pramface is a term coined by popbitch?

well i suspect that until it was taken up by the media no one had hear dit much then

i never heard it till now so using it on tv is going to promulgate it rather than anything else

[nappyaddict]

and SAHM's are often put down for having no direction in life except for their kids, not just single mums.

[shedev]

LEWIS FAN why are they gonna edit us to look like slobs and sluts????? Don't get you at all, i've just said that i'm a working single mum, with a degree that pays full rent and council tax,i was in a long term relationship with my son's father, we split after 7 years? How can they portray that as a slob or a slut?? My dear you need to chill a little, stop looking at the negitive of what MIGHT happen? People prob don't even jugde you, by the sounds of it you just assume they do. Pram-face is a totally different program to pramface mansion..... your looking at the wrong press releases love.

www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/01_january/22/bbcthree_factual.shtml
Cut this and put that into your browser!!
STOP JUDGING. Please.... if your judging us, as a fellow single mum, what chance are we gonna have!!!

[Lulumama]

so, have i missed it then?

[donnie]

this thread is such a car crash....

[nametaken]

That's twice you've mentioned you pay full rent and council tax - how is that relevant to this discussion.

From nametaken

Who has paid full rent and council tax for 20 years without telling the whole effing world about it.

[shedev]

Because.........LEWISFAN thinks we are gonna give single mum's a bad name for being slobs and sluts, earning money to pay rent and council tax proves that i'm not a lazy slob,and that is why it was relevant to the discussion, does that clear things up for you nametaken?

[nametaken]

your very aggresive and sarcastic, I'm not surprised your single.

[nametaken]

goodbye, look forward to seeing you behaving badly on tv and reinforcing all society's stereotypes about single mums.

[shedev]

well sorry to disapoint you again, but i'm in a relationship now, and i didn't behave badly on the show. Plus that was not a very nice thing to say, what if my partner had died?? Again I love you judgemental ways...... You asked me a question, which was quiet aggresive and sarcastic so i answered in the same way. If there is anything worse than a judgemental person it is a hypocritical judgemetal person........