27 July 2006
As I sat down at my desk this morning and prepared to eat the little marzipan foetuses I make for myself every morning for breakfast just to show the world just what a bad-ass child hater I am, I was struck by a headline you don't see very often, especially not in the Mail
Sorry, but my children bore me to death
I know this is one of the last taboos of modern society. To admit that you, a mother of the new millennium, don't find your offspring thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable at all times is a state of affairs very few women are prepared to admit. We feel ashamed, and unfit to be mothers.
This subversive idea can only be tolerated to a certan degree, of course, so they chose the least sympathetic woman they could find - tales of her poor, poor children being given piting looks by the other mothers at a birthday party because she herself was elsewhere, 'ogling the merchandise at Harvey Nichols or having my highlights done instead' and begging the nanny to read the bedtime story because she finds it bores her rigid litter the article. It's certainly not easy to come away with any empathy for the woman herself; if you're not immediately struck dumb that she has anything but wonderful, life affirming stories about being a parent then, like me, you'll consider her real shallowness to be that she seems to think about nothing but skirts.
But if the Mail ran this provocative piece to make an example of this unlikable mother as a warning to other uppity woman, then it must have been surprised as I was to read the comments it got. Two thirds were, of course, the special kind of outrage that Mail readers do so well, sprinklled liberally with those who use the phrase 'count your blessings' like they're dispensing previously unheard, arcane wisdom - though telling someone they should be permanently ecstatic to have children because there are others who can't is a bit like telling someone they should be happy to be given an oversized knitted green jumper from your auntie Doris at Christmas because green is somebody else's favourite colour. But the rest, from parents and non-parents alike, were relentlessly supporting, cheering on the only person they have ever heard admit such a thing.
In the end one has to wonder why she had them. You are either the type of person that enjoys constantly removing food from your DVD player while singing The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round, or you are not. And while motherhood is incessantly sold as the most creative, fufilling and life enhancing experience you can possibly have, all the propaganda in the world cannot miraculously change you into the kind of person who finds talking about the colour of poo endlessly fascinating. I think I'd prefer to believe that she ignored all reason and had children anyway as some kind of accessory or because all her friends were than because she got sucked in by the myth and thought everything would be different - at least the former isn't so damn passive.
Still, once I'd picked up the tiny bits of spluttered-out marzipan umbillical cord from between the keys of my keyboard I realised I could only be pleased to see the tentacles of the Barren And Petulant Society (BAPS for short) are obviously further reaching than I thought, even if she isn't the best patron we could wish for.
Surely the point is to have the most interesting, fascinating children *ever*
If your children are boring it is a reflection on how poorly you've raised them and left them to develop what little imagination they have through computer games, comic books, violent films... oh, hang on, three of my favorite things,
posted by D | 27 July 2006Re: the most life-enhancing experience. I’m out of touch but everyone I know is in the ‘can’t afford it’ mode or ‘I will do but once I’ve really got no choice. Like, aged 48 or something’. I admire your child free ultimatum mainly because I can’t help thinking that a generation is going to grow up with a voice in their ear - ‘Mummy and Daddy didn’t really want you. Not really. They just thought they had to have try everything once. You’re probably a burden to them. You ended their fun. Stop eating, Fritha. It’s disgusting. Let the pain out, Fritha. Play with those matches. Do it.’ Where I grew up people seemed to fire them out - it really wasn’t the planet-realignment the people I meet imagine it is. Good thing or bad, I’m not sure; for while the world is full of nice, sensitive and dutiful people deferring on having kids, a pair of loons with the EQ of broken scissors just seem to blunder in there. “We’re all middle class now”? Not if the breeding habits of the people I meet have anything to do with it!
posted by Urban Ospreys | 27 July 2006I was at a mate's house the other night, actually discussing the consistancy & colour of his new daughter's poo. He's experimenting with her food to try & alter it's properties. It's OK, he's eating the same to see if it works on him too.
posted by PD | 28 July 2006He's sorry, he's a biologist.
Do you really eat marzipan for breakfast?
posted by jo | 28 July 2006Only when I can't get real babies.
posted by Jack | 28 July 2006>Still, once I'd picked up the tiny bits of spluttered-out marzipan umbillical cord from between the keys of my keyboard
see? who needs kids. you can live your own life, just as rich and full (filling).
posted by Saltation | 28 July 2006Well I left my own comment for the mail, along the lines of how babies are creepy as they remind me of half-formed maggots with their doughy flesh & unfocused eyes.
posted by Jess | 29 July 2006I'm just glad that i'm of a generation where there is a genuine choice not to have children, and the pros & cons are honestly discussed.
OK, I know I am a man, but I would like to have children one day. I can't imagine anything worse than lying on your deathbed and thinking, "my god, what have I left that has any worth?" Plus, of course, I like children. And, somewhat surprisingly, they tend to like me.
Plus, of course, I have stuff-all interest in skirts...
DK
posted by Devil's Kitchen | 31 July 2006And this is why my wife and I have decided not to have children. Because I'd hate for them to grow up and read the Mail... ;-)
Joking aside... why do you read it? ;-)
OK OK. I totally agree that far too many people seem to believe or succumb to societal pressure. The old equation (ovaries = babies) is no longer valid as it should now read ovaries + free choice "may or may not" = babies.
(sorry, don't know how you do the mathmatical "may or may not" sign).
Anyhoo, marzipan for breakfast. You are my hero.
posted by Gordon | 31 July 2006I can't imagine anything worse than lying on your deathbed and thinking, "my god, what have I left that has any worth?"
Me neither. But I know my doctoral thesis has little chance of growing up into a pointy-object wielding psychopath that never calls its mother.
posted by Jack | 31 July 2006I do think it's interesting that in the UK we do seem to have an all or nothing approach to children. Either you don't want anything to do with them, don't want to admit they exist, are not part of our society ... or you feel your every waking moment should be devoted to worshiping at the altar of your precious spawn. Neither attitude is really a good atmosphere to be bringing up children, imo.
It really is startlingly relaxing and refreshing to go somewhere like Spain or Italy where you pop into a small shop and the owner is genuinely delighted to see them rather than viewing them as potential thieves and vandals before they've even planted one step in. Even sometimes entertaining them for you while you're working out what you want to buy. Or going to a restaurant and it not all being crappy segregated "children's menu" rubbish, but anything on the menu can be presented in a smaller portion. It's just nice not to feel a pariah just because you've ... *gasp* ... taken your child out from the confines of your home into a normal public space.
Not sure where I'm really going with this, but yes - why the hell did that woman have children?! At the same time, I can understand perfectly the reaction over the children are mini-gods attitude that modern parenting in the UK seems to have morphed into.
posted by Pewari | 3 August 2006I strongly believe that shops, restaurants and other cultural/leisure establishments ought to encourage the family unit to spend quality time together and find shared meaning in their experiences.
I also strongly believe that people with pushchairs should be banned from city centres during busy periods, to make dashing to the shops in your lunchbreak feasible, and that children in restaurants should be made to eat behind screens.
Does that come under 'all or nothing approach'?
posted by jo | 3 August 2006"Does that come under 'all or nothing approach'?"
I think so ;-)
I believe that children can be as boring and as delightful as adults. The point is just that parents tend to forget this *boring*-side and only show the *delightful*-side to the outside world...
Love most children, though don't want any from myself.
posted by natasha | 5 August 2006