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Sorry, but my children bore me to death! (Feminism's highest honor, Grand Narcissism)
Daily Mail ^ | 26th July 2006 | HELEN KIRWAN-TAYLOLR

Posted on 07/26/2006 7:17:10 AM PDT by carlo3b

Sorry, but my children bore me to death!
by HELEN KIRWAN-TAYLOLR, Daily Mail 08:00am 26th July 2006

It's the start of the summer holidays, when millions of mothers despair at how to entertain their children for the next six weeks. What none of them dare say is that they would rather their children were still at school or, frankly, anywhere else. Helen Kirwan-Taylor, a 42-year-old writer, lives in Notting Hill, West London, with her businessman husband Charles and their sons Constantin, 12, and Ivan, ten. Here, she argues provocatively that modern women must not be enslaved by their children.

The lies started when my eldest son was less than ten months old.

Invitations to attend a child's birthday party or, worse, a singalong session were met with the same refrain: 'I would love to but I just can't spare the time.'

The nanny was dispatched in my place, and almost always returned complaining that my son had been singled out for pitiful stares by the other mothers.

(snip)
Kids are supposed to be fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun: why was my attitude towards them so different?

While all my girlfriends were dropping important careers and occupying their afternoons with cake baking, I was begging the nanny to stay on, at least until she had read my two a bedtime story. What kind of mother hates reading bedtime stories? A bad mother, that's who, and a mother who is bored rigid by her children.

(snip)
Am I a lazy, superficial person because I don't enjoy packing up their sports kit, or making their lunch, or sitting through coffee mornings with other mothers discussing how Mr Science (I can't remember most of the teachers' names) said such and such to Little Johnny and should we all complain to the headmaster.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: childred; feminism; liberalism; motherhood; parenthood; selfish; soccermom
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To: Tijeras_Slim

FREERIDER Ping!


41 posted on 07/26/2006 7:35:36 AM PDT by Allegra (FReeping LIVE! from suddenly one of the safer places in the Middle East)
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To: carlo3b

I bet she's the type of is a hellion if she doesn't get a Mother's Day card but misses all the events in her kids life.


42 posted on 07/26/2006 7:36:04 AM PDT by pikachu (Be alert --we need more lerts!)
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To: Gabz
I've been grantd a mini Mommy holiday today. Hubby and daughter are spending the day together, away from the house. I can't tell you how many times I have caught myself looking out the window to check on her..........and they've only been gone 2 hours!!!!

You know I wasn't talking about you. ;-) You wouldn't believe how many times I will go out with my husband, hear a baby cry, then want to go home and see my baby. This usually after only a couple of hours.

43 posted on 07/26/2006 7:37:03 AM PDT by HungarianGypsy
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To: ChildOfThe60s
Why they have them is beyond me.

Because if she didn't have children, she would hear how selfish she was for not having children, how childless couples aren't real adults, how having children will instantly change her heart, etc. Instead, she had done her adult "duty", and her two sons will grow up scarred for life.

Some people are not cut out to be parents, period. When they are pressured to become parents, this is what happens.

44 posted on 07/26/2006 7:38:56 AM PDT by LWalk18
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To: carlo3b
They stopped asking me to take them to the park (how tedious) years ago. 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.'

How right they are.


How sad for her children!
I'd be interested to see how their relationship is in years to come.
45 posted on 07/26/2006 7:39:26 AM PDT by MaryFromMichigan
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To: carlo3b
Kids are supposed to be fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun: why was my attitude towards them so different?

Because you're selfish and only care about you maybe???

46 posted on 07/26/2006 7:40:02 AM PDT by Mo1 (Bolton- "No one has explained how you negotiate a ceasefire with terrorists")
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To: Warren_Piece

I was thinking more along the lines of the Little Golden Books or the serialized Pony Club books and Nancy Drew type stuff. There are some kid lit books that I do enjoy; Stuart Little, Marguerite Henry and others.

My point was that if a person expects themselves to be entertained as an adult by activities which are meant for kids, they are focusing on the wrong things. As a parent we give up much of we would choose to do if we didn't have our children around, for the sake of being with the children and moulding their characters. It is not the activities we focus on, but the end result of the activities of the years.


47 posted on 07/26/2006 7:40:13 AM PDT by Jemian (PAM of JT ~~ Thanks for putting our boys in harms way, Rep. Murtha, you treasonous jack@ss!)
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To: carlo3b

"Kids are supposed to be fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun..."

Where on earth did she get that idea? Parenting requires work, sacrifice, dedication, patients, and unselfishness. I wonder how her mom felt about raising her.


48 posted on 07/26/2006 7:41:12 AM PDT by Grig
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To: carlo3b

I simply can't imagine a parent not taking an interest in most of their kids' activities and interests. How can this kind of parent expect their kids to listen to them or take any interest in their ideas or values? This mom will one day certainly end up in a lonely old folks' home.


49 posted on 07/26/2006 7:41:56 AM PDT by zook ("We all knew someone in primary school who had a really powerful magnet")
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To: Gabz
My 'kids' are 29 and 32.

They're grown and now leading their own independent lives. I cannot tell you how often I think back on all the days we spent together.

How much I miss them. How there's a big hole in my life that was filled with their laughter, their delight in learning something new, their spats......my daughter insisting her brother started it all when he hit her back.

Those memories are sustaining to this day.

50 posted on 07/26/2006 7:42:07 AM PDT by OldFriend (I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag.....and My Heart to the Soldier Who Protects It.)
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To: Gabz

I wonder how many mothers think what she put down on paper. I wonder how many regret their decisions after having the kids and find they don't like kids as much as they thought. It sounds to me that she should have never had them in the first place and maybe she had them because all her friends were having them.


51 posted on 07/26/2006 7:42:38 AM PDT by cyborg (No I don't miss the single life at all.)
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To: cyborg

I'll bet this lady's kids never got one 'I love you' written on a piece of paper in their lunch sack. My kids are grown now but they remember me writing them little notes, wishing them luck on tests and such. We may not have been perfect parents, but it wasn't from lack of trying. Geeeshhh...


52 posted on 07/26/2006 7:42:48 AM PDT by Cate
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To: twigs
I always just hated that Staples commercial at the end of the summer that has the parents skating behind a shopping cart buying supplies so that their children can finally return to school.

There are actually a few commercials on the same theme. There was a Famous Footwear radio spot a few years back that went on about how wonderful it would be when the kids go back to school. I hated it when that commercial came on.

53 posted on 07/26/2006 7:43:14 AM PDT by HungarianGypsy
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To: ChildOfThe60s

Trophy children for parents who can afford to have the nanny be the real parent. How sad for the children. I have nothing but disdain for the incubators.


54 posted on 07/26/2006 7:43:28 AM PDT by OldFriend (I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag.....and My Heart to the Soldier Who Protects It.)
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To: carlo3b

Her sons definitely should not marry a girl like dear old mom...if they marry a girl at all. When she's a shriveled old crone in a government home, they may treat her with the same self-centered neglect that she taught them when they were young.


55 posted on 07/26/2006 7:43:52 AM PDT by kittymyrib
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To: All

Self-serving plug here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076152424X/qid=1084813031/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-0939260-3759831?n=507846&s=books&v=glance


56 posted on 07/26/2006 7:45:14 AM PDT by pepperspray
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To: polymuser
She'll die alone.

And whining about how ungrateful her children are...

with only her bedsores to hear.

57 posted on 07/26/2006 7:45:23 AM PDT by MrEdd (Bad spellers of the world - UNTIE!,)
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To: LWalk18
When they are pressured to become parents, this is what happens.

Some are pressured. But I disagree that most are. I think that most have no clue what parenting is. What children are. They have children the way most of us buy cars. It's more a matter of thoughtless egocentrism.

58 posted on 07/26/2006 7:45:48 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s...you weren't really there.)
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To: LWalk18
Some people are not cut out to be parents, period. When they are pressured to become parents, this is what happens.

These words have a strain of defensiveness that tells me you're speaking from experience. I agree, although I'll add the caveat that there are *SOME* people who have kids as a kind of fashion accessory, not because of some external pressure. Then they get bored wiht them like they do their Gucci bags.

Also, there are two type of pressure:

1) Parents and in-laws wanting grandchildren. This is perfectly legitimate, and if the adult child can't handle this legitimate rite of passage, they have other issues.

2)Strangers who, for some reason, are insecure about their own choice to have children. These people are aghast that someone could choose a different path from them and still not be *selfish* . These people need to be told to buzz off.

59 posted on 07/26/2006 7:46:42 AM PDT by Warren_Piece (Smart is easy. Good is hard.)
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To: carlo3b

How sad for these boys. It reminds me of a poem I've had on my bedroom mirror for years:


My hands were busy through the day.
I didn’t have much time to play.
The little games you asked to do,
I didn’t have much time for you.
I’d wash your clothes. I’d sew and cook.
You’d ask and I’d read from your book.
I’d tuck you in all safe at night,
And hear your prayers; turn out the light.

Then tiptoe softly by your door,
I wish I’d stayed a minute more.
For life was short, the years rushed past,
A little boy grows up so fast.
No longer is he at my side,
His precious secrets to confide.
The picture books are put away.
There are no longer games to play.

No Teddy Bears or misplaced toys
No sleepovers with lots of boys.
No goodnight kiss, no prayers to hear.
That all belongs to yesteryear.
My hands, once busy, now are still.
The days are long and hard to fill.
I wish I could go back and do
The little things you asked me to do.


60 posted on 07/26/2006 7:47:21 AM PDT by Quilla
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