More mummy knocking

[handlemecarefully]

Did you read the India Knight article in the Sunday Times (not my paper - was reading parents in law's paper!)

Apparently it is totally indefensible to place your child in a Day Nursery (or with a nanny / childminder) when they are a baby. The magic age that it becomes acceptable according to the law unto Ms Knight, is 12 months old. Any mum farming out their children before that age is simply unfit to be a mother and shouldn't have procreated.

Also, since according to Ms Knight day care costs £60 per day (really ? - mine doesn't), any woman who can afford those sort of child care costs can afford to take a year's unpaid leave from work.

I spent about 2 minutes being upset and annoyed after reading this article, and then tried to dismiss it from my mind (not altogether successfully). I suppose there is an anti mum article (either knocking SAHMs or working mums) every week at the moment, because the media have got it into their heads that parenting is a very vogue and fashionable subject. Its getting mighty boring now though...

She's younger than me???????? I thought I was wearing badly.

Oooh, well if she uses fabulous mac lipstick, my need certainly is greater than hers, and I hope she DOES hand it over in the street....I am rather underlipsticked, definately an unfit mother. Or Bobbi Brown. Should maybe use some of my child-abandoning hours to hovver outside Harvey Nicks in case she comes out with a new stash....

Sorry but I am a SAHM and have to do some knocking too... can anyone name one mother who is the perfect ideal for their child/children? I often feel guilty not because I go to work as I don't but because I SAH and don't do anywhere near as much as I think I should with my children. They are growing soooooo quickly and I sometimes wonder if my children would be better off if I did work. I am always full of good intentions but tomorrow never comes. I find it hard to play all the time which is what they want. I find it hard to stop saying "be careful" etc which I am told can put self-doubt into their young minds. I find it hard to step back when they are having difficulty with other children who for example push their way in at the playground etc. The End! for now at least!

So if she's pregnant, does that mean that she'll have to stop writing her column? After all, she'll be busy looking after the baby because, in her view, it wouldn't be responsible to have a baby and then give it to someone else to look after.

Absolutely bran, she can't surely find the time to write a column, look after a baby and smoke 40 fags a day???

Lets keep our fingers crossed tamum.

I can't wait to leave dd at nursery (at 6 months) as she's socibale, there are different toys and I'll be able to go on mumsnet when she isn't there and spend time with her when she is. Would it be wrong to leave a child with family?

Aloha- I can guarantee you would have loved India Knight's column of 16 May 1999! I think of you when I think of that column (no I'm not some India Knight freak just ds1 was born on the 14th and the column was very very relevant to his birth- or at least it seemed so then not so clear now, so anyway it made its way into his baby box).

Anyway since then I have read her columns pretty much every week. Sometimes I do think she's quite funny, but she does seem to have been losing the plot a bit since getting this new boyfriend.

A friend emailed her once after one particularly lunatic column and she did get a very decent reply back.

She does get it horribly wrong sometimes though. For example after a girl died in a swimming class she ran a piece about terrible parents not teaching their children to swim. What she didn't know (I asume) was that the girl who died was autistic and was on a school swimming trip- and the staff ratio was not high enough for autistic children (should be one to one in my view). I almost emailed her then, but the autistic bit wasn't in the public domain at the time so I didn't think it would be right to do so. (It is in the public domain now).

What are the chances of India joining MN when she has the baby?

Have to agree with you about IK's flattering ST portrait and how she has the cheek to write beauty advice. However, I suspect the column is a kind of "answer" to one written in the ST a few weeks back by Kate somebody or other, which basically said that sahm's were letting the country down (among other things). (This was discussed on mumsnet a while back.)

As a sahm I wouldn't dream of leaving my child in childcare 5 days a week (the youngest goes 1 day a week so I'm not totally anti) and found much more to agree with (excepting particularly the stuff about baby Thomas) in India's article than in Kate's article -BUT we're all different and what is right for one family is not right for another.

Btw I would have thought she would be able to find time to write one column even with a new baby - so perhaps she's not going to disappear just yet

This thread has cheered me up, I have always loathed IK's "writing". Luckily I live in a part of London that is so far removed from her consciousness that even if she sees this thread she won't be able to locate me and come and sit on me until I am dead. Especially liked the bit about the Martin Pitt eggs, ks! Comments from people in her line of work have also made my day. Someone please send the sad old thing a link to this thread...

[Erm, can someone explain the Martin Pitt eggs thing, I used to buy them when I lived near Oxford because they were sold by my local butcher and it was a convienient place to buy 'happy' eggs. I'm obviously missing something (again)]

Ooh, go on Jimjams, tell me what it was about!
BTW hope you're feeling happier. I hate to think of you being sad. Go on, have a look at a picture of her and it will cheer you up. Always works for me...

But I always think she looks glam (only seen the ST pic)- and I don't wear make up so she would be passing her lippy onto me (I do remember that one- I did laugh out loud though). Dug out DS1's baby box with his cute little socks (aww) etc etc and the article isn't there! It must be with his cards- but god knows where they are. Anyway it was about how useless burning candles etc is during labour and what everyone needs is to bring on the epidural Now I'm not so sure- and wish I had tried the aromatherapy for longer- or at least employed a doula - but at the time it was very apt.

I am happy at the moment btw- just feeling phased about the future (urgh) Generally I don't think about it much, but I've been forced to recently and it scares the livng daylights out of me to be honest.

Thanks for a laugh of a thread everyone. I read the Observer piece and thought she was a right old bag too. Gave up reading the Sun Times ages ago so haven't been incensed by her there recently but she's definitely NOT in any position to be doling out beauty advice.

does anyone have a photie of her.
I need a laugh

books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,6000,1075810,00.html

here

fairymum thanx for that but where is the photie

Sorry Doormat, I can't find any. Let me do a few more searches to see what I can come up with....

Doormat, only one I could find.