What is happening to us as a society?

[Don Corleone]

This from the Daily Mail (yes, yes I know, a conservative rag, certainly not up to the editorial standards of the Guardian or some other Che Guavera loving fishwrap): Mother proudly declares 'my children bore me to death and I do everything I can to avoid spending time with them'.

What does it say when a woman like this is applauded and paid to voice this garbage? (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=397672&in_page_id=1879&in_page_id=1879&ct=5&expand=true#StartComments)

Is it any wonder that children are abused by adults? Their own parents declare them to be boring and unfit company and wish as little to do with them as possible...

To answer Ms. Kirwan-Taylor's rhetorical questions... No, not wanting to read your children bedtime stories doesn't make you selfish and an unfit mother. Deciding that whatever you want is more imporant than what the children need, and their needs be damned for your enjoyment... that does. We all do things we find unpleasant. Personally, changing my daughter's soiled diapers doesn't really do it for me. But I don't leave her in feces filled diapers all day because that would crimp my style.... some people just aren't worth the oxygen they consume each day...

[Lemur]

Everything wrong-headed and misguided about this woman can be summed up in this sentence:

"Frankly, as long as you've fed them, sheltered them and told them they are loved, children will be fine."

Told them they are loved? What's wrong with showing them they are loved? What a despicable woman. If you aren't prepared to do the work, don't be a parent.

[discovery1]

She should have used the pill.

Hmm, I think its a bit mch to demand that parents enjoy time with their kids, although if they don't why have them, but they should bit the bullet so to speak.

[UglyandHasty]

I dont know what is happening to our society, but reading things like that is depressing. Children are our most precious treasury. Many things are not pleasant when raising a child. But for the child sake you have to do it. I find her comments egoist. She should have taken the pills.

[Pannonian]

She should have used the pill.

Her parents should have used the pill.

[Reenk Roink]

Her parents should have used the pill.

Her parents were probably never aware of the pill... :wink:

[yesdachi]

What a hag. There is nothing I would rather do than spend time with my child. The reason my little one is fun to be around is because I spend time with him and help him learn and grow and become an interesting and caring person. If you are not willing to put in the effort to raise them, then you shouldn’t have them.

(opens can of worms) She is one reason I am ok with abortion. Some people just shouldn’t be parents.

[drone]

One thing she probably needs to be made aware of. If she doesn't care for her children when they are young, she shouldn't expect them to care for her when she is old. When she is 70 years old, it should come as no surprise to her when her kids stick her in a old folks home to rot.

[Don Corleone]

A quick note on the two "Yes" poll options. Obviously, a parent should TRY to revel in or enjoy her time with their children. I meant to draw a distinction between forcing yourself to believe that you enjoy every last minute (first choice) or accepting that Barney for the 47th time (or Teletubbies for the first) can be painful, but you should suck it up and do it anyway (second choice). Whee, 4K!!!

[whyidie]

Where is the "it takes a village" option ?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Splendid! :2thumbsup:

It's good a woman finally breaks one of the last taboo's in our society: that children are not always fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun.

'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.'

Many men still shy away from giving it all up to cater for their offspring. Women are not granted the luxury men have: to have children without the moral and social pressure to cater to their every need 24 hours a day, every day.

Unlike men, women have only two options available: doing what this brave woman does and trying to break the taboo. Or doing what succesful women in our societies are doing now at a massive scale: not having children in the first place.

We had better take heed of her than condemn her. For two reasons: to get our birth-rates up to replacement levels,
and to finally get intelligent, succesful women to start breeding again.

[Don Corleone]

Splendid! :2thumbsup:

It's good a woman finally breaks one of the last taboo's in our society: that children are not always fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun.

'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.'

Many men still shy away from giving it all up to cater for their offspring. Women are not granted the luxury men have: to have children without the moral and social pressure to cater to their every need 24 hours a day, every day.

Unlike men, women have only two options available: doing what this brave woman does and trying to break the taboo. Or doing what succesful women in our societies are doing now at a massive scale: not having children in the first place.

We had better take heed of her than condemn her. For two reasons: to get our birth-rates up to replacement levels,
and to finally get intelligent, succesful women to start breeding again.

Louis, she's making strawman arguments in that post. Nobody argues that child-rearing and providing emotional support is less than desireable at times (at least I'm certainly not). Her whole contention is that because she doesn't want to do it, she shouldn't have to, and doesn't, to as limited a degree as she possibly can. She's an absentee mother, and I do feel entitled to challenge her contetion that "she loves her children just as much as anyone else". No, she doesn't. She produced a pair of accessories to trot out when she feels like playing Mom for an hour or two a month, then shuttles them back out of sight when she tires of them. What sort of human beings do you think THAT approach will raise?

Are you advocating that in an effort to get birthrates up, women should just serve a reproductive purpose, and then move on to whatever intersts them next? Just because men are cads about being fathers (and have been for some time, if anything, I think we're getting better) is no reason to loosen the expectations on mothers. Call the fathers in your personal circle that you know to be shirking their duties on it. But frankly, if you want to know where Columbine killers and pedophile victims come from, this is it right here. Constantin and Ivan.

[Kanamori]

Developmentally speaking, children need to be around people to grow up well, to learn language, and to learn logic. I do not really care that she finds them boring, at some time, I'm sure that all parents get kind of tired rearing children. Saying that they need love is questionable... They would live healthy lives w/o 'love' I think, but certainly not w/o attention.

[yesdachi]

to get our birth-rates up to replacement levels,
Why would I want to increase the number of children from mothers like her?

[Geoffrey S]

There are always people like her. Crap like the Mail actually pays for her opinion.

[whyidie]

There are always people like her. Crap like the Mail actually pays for her opinion.


Outrage sells papers. Look at the bad mother!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Why would I want to increase the number of children from mothers like her?So that not only crack-addicted high school drop-out teens reproduce, but also highly educated women?

[Reenk Roink]

So that not only crack-addicted high school drop-out teens reproduce, but also highly educated women?

Hmm... what seems to tie them together is a disdain for motherhood...

Might as well not have kids if you aren't looking forward to it...

[Louis VI the Fat]

A good, truly old-fashioned mom will not fall for the trappings of a 1950's false sense of the right living. She will not to the emotional drain of herself and her children confine herself and her children at home. Both need more than each other to have fullfilling lives. Good moms routinely entrust their children into the hands of capable others so that she and her children can develop a healthy social life by engaging in lots of contact with others.

The atomic family is a recent development. That children should be raised only by their mothers, or sometimes, a father and a mother, is a very recent development. The more natural environment for a child to grow up in is an extended family. Or a small band of people. It takes a village indeed.

Columbine killers and pedophile victims are the result of the fixation on families rather than communities. A single brute has less opportunity to go about his business if more than a handful of people share responsibility for a child. An absentee women is not a problem at all if child is cared for by a whole host of people.

Children should be raised by their parents, grandparents, cousins, neighbours, in-laws. Not in a nuclear family. Nowadays, the grandparents live miles away, in different cities instead of around the corner. Other family members are even further away. Neighbours and friends don't dare thread on the privacy of a family. You know, 'family values' and all that: the single nuclear family unit that is revered as the backbone of society. By conservatives, who are mistaken in thinking that this is a tried-and-trusted old-fashioned way of living. When in fact it is a recent development.

Now, extended families and closely-knit communities are a thing of the past. What we do have, is a second-best solution: day-care centres, kindergartens, schools, save children friendly environments.

[whyidie]

Children should be raised by their parents, grandparents, cousins, neighbours, in-laws. Not in a nuclear family. Nowadays, the grandparents live miles away, in different cities instead of around the corner. Other family members are even further away. Neighbours and friends don't dare thread on the privacy of a family. You know, 'family values' and all that: the single nuclear family unit that is revered as the backbone of society. By conservatives, who are mistaken in thinking that this is a tried-and-trusted old-fashioned way of living. When in fact it is a recent development.

Now, extended families and closely-knit communities are a thing of the past. What we do have, is a second-best solution: day-care centres, kindergartens, schools, save children friendly environments.

Now THAT sounds like good old fashioned family values.

Follow-up question. What type of children came out of the nuclear families of the 50's ? Fine upstanding traditionalists ?

[yesdachi]

So that not only crack-addicted high school drop-out teens reproduce, but also highly educated women?
I would rather that someone in-between the crack addict and the bitch have the next generation. :wink:

IMO A highly educated woman would know how to raise a child.

[Craterus]

That woman sounds like my mother. I got brought up by nannies, and I turned out fine, didn't I? Didn't I?! :no:

[Spino]

I'm inclined to think that if we were to step through the looking glass to a world where it is 'fashionable' and cutting edge for western women to be popping out babies like there's no tomorrow you can bet your collective a$$es that Mrs. Kirwan-Taylor would be at the forefront of the Barefoot and Pregnant Movement and publicly expressing her personal dissatisfaction with having to endure the banal existence of a typical career driven drone who must endure a 50+ hour work week doing a job he/she hates.

But something tells me Mrs. Kirwan-Taylor isn't unhappy because she is being forced to endure the torture and banality of motherhood. She's unhappy because she needs an excuse to explain her less than world winning status in life. Tragically her children are the ones paying the price for her overblown princess complex. Oh, if only she was childless and had devoted all her energies towards a career; what extraordinary heights she could have reached, what great works she could have accomplished! Chances are she would be nothing more than a mildly successful career woman (or in her case, published writer of lesser note) who blames her marriage for 'holding her back'. Mrs. Kirwan-Taylor's main problem is that she has delusions of grandeur which are now being smashed against the reality of a life that is rapidly approaching the mid point. Wrinkles, sagging breasts, cellulose deposits and nary a crown, attendant or executive stock portfolio in sight, oh the humanity!

Horrendous attitudes regarding motherhood aside someone needs to remind Mrs. Kirwan-Taylor that world winners don't complain about the odds stacked against them; they accept them and fight like mad to overcome them. Thank goodness history isn't written by people like our illustrious Mrs. Kirwan-Taylor.

[Samurai Waki]

...ugh. Unfortunately I know that situation all too well, and it is the very reason why I'm for purging unfit parents...

[thrashaholic]

I think that a moderated approach to raising children is the best solution, as it is in all situations. Children need neither too much nor too little attention, both will result in disfunctional children; this woman seems to be erring on the side of too little and as a result her children clearly resent her and are already turning into pessimists: "But now when I try to entertain them and say: 'Why don't we get out the Monopoly board?' they simply look at me woefully and sigh: 'Don't bother, Mum, you'll just get bored.'" However there is truth that too much attention means children become dependent on it.

A relationship with one's children ought to be much like any other: one finds common interests that one can share with the other participant and from which you both benefit. My father and I would have very little to talk about if we didn't share a mutual interest in rugby, and, although my mother isn't as interested in high art as much as I am, she is enough to enjoy going around galleries with me (she tends to enjoy them more when she goes with me in fact because she learns things about paintings from me).

One doesn't have to be enthusiastic about everything a child does, like any other person, but forging healthy relationships is about finding common ground. A balanced approach will help create balanced children.

Also, regarding low birth rates, mothers aren't having children because it isn't profitable to do so either socially, practically, or financially. It seems to me that large families are generally considered a bad thing in modern society, and I suspect, as unfashionable as it is to say it, this is because women are now expected to forge themselves a career. Gender roles serve a function and that's as true now as it has ever been. Children are very time consuming, which means that having more than one or two is really quite prohibitive in terms of a career in a traditional sense. In my opinion the best way to cure this is allow greater flexibility: more working from home, daycare at offices, 'flexihours' etc. On top of this changing society's expectation away from that women should be self-sufficient and expect grand careers to one where motherhood (especially with several children) and staying with your husband (provided he's not violent or whatever...) is, for want of a better word, considered virtuous. This should also go hand in hand with fathers getting involved too. Unfortunately close extended families are impossible without severely restricting labour mobility and consequently damaging employment/ the economy etc.

[Ironside]

My guess is that her mother-instinct genes isn't working properly.

She does have a point in that you can go too far in about caring for your children and sacrifice too much of yourself, but she honestly doesn't seem to care about her children.

[Slyspy]

It is nothing to do with society. Why must everything be "OMG look what the nasty people are doing now, it was so much better in the old days!!!!!11!!!!1one!!!!".

This is about the personality of the individual. If you don't think anyone else feels this way, and that no one ever has in the past then you are kidding yourself.

[ajaxfetish]

Not just for mothers, but for fathers as well, enjoying spending time with the kids will make life happier and better for both the parents and the children. Regardless, having a child is a choice (unless you're in a situation of rape without the option for either abortion or adoption, I suppose), and comes with responsibility attached. Investing time in children, even if it's not enjoyable, is a bare minimum requirement for a good parent. If she wasn't willing to take on the responsibility, she shouldn't have made that choice.

Ajax

[econ21]

I've only skim read it (it's too late) but it seems people must have read a different article to the one I read. I suspect Ms Kirwan-Taylor is an excellent mother and predict her children will grow up to be happy sociable high achievers. She's not leaving them in soiled nappies. She's even taking them to 2.5 hours of inane Pirates of the Caribbean 2. She's just saying she finds a lot of kiddie stuff boring and doesn't feel obligated to do stuff the kids don't need her to do (play monopoly, go to some school functions etc). She's choosing how she uses her time - not merely doing what society expects. As she is a writer, I suspect that through her interactions with her family she stimulates and inspires her kids a lot more than most parents who just go through the motions.

I recognise a lot of my own family in the article, although in reality our lives revolve around our child. The only real point of departure I have with the article is that it does not highlight how funny and interesting kids can be. Maybe she's playing devil's advocate and only stressing the downsides of kids to sell her story - I find it hard to believe a writer does not enjoy telling bedtime stories. But if Ms Kirwan-Taylor does not feel that, it's her loss but I doubt it will harm her children.

[JimBob]

Bored people are boring people, and boring people are never to be trusted.