With the possibility of being completely inundated with complaints, diatribe, and vitriol, I declare the Dummy Mummy open thread closed, until I return to the subject with a more in depth analysis of the subject.
I completely understand that parents can be particularly sensitive about their role and their children, and that having a childless critic talking about them and their parenting methods can be unfair. But my beef with dull mothers comes from personal experience, and that perhaps I had met the most extreme example that gave rise to such extreme views.
Though I make no apologies for my attitude towards child-obsessed parents – I have very little patience for people who impose every detail of their lives on others and who hold bigoted views themselves in the interest of their children. But parents are not the only ones who fall under this category.
Alicia Izharuddin 
It’s pretty hard to understand the way that motherhood can completely take over your daily life unless you’ve experienced it.
I also think that bagging mothers for loving thier children too much is just another way of keeping women down. Put your kids in daycare while you pursue a career? Devote every waking minute to raising your children the best way you can? You’re a doormat and what’s more, you’re boring. And unnattractive. You should be spending less time finger painting and more time painting your nails so you look nice.
How about instead of putting each other down, women support and celebrate each other’s choices? How about that, hey?
** This comment has been moderated by Cycads **
Split Milk,
Hhmm. How is criticising mothers who think that everyone wants to know about every minutiae of their children’s lives “keeping other women down”? I did not say anything about children-obsession as loving children a lot, because the latter should the most natural thing for parents. Didn’t I say that motherhood is a noble thing and that I totally respect that? Sheesh!
How is personally attacking me and my appearance(!) any helpful in discussing about the current state of middle-class motherhood? And why am I boring? is it because I don’t have children that I can show off and talk endlessly about?
And how about respecting other women’s opinions, hey?
Cycads, I certainly did not attack your appearance or call you boring! Perhaps you misunderstood what I said? And having edited my reply means that the meaning is obscured further. Why not just delete it? In any case, I didn’t mean to cause offense and I apologise for giving that impression.
Spilt milk,
That’s fine. Perhaps I found it a little incoherent as well. I’ve thought about the implications of opening up the discussion, and have now decided to close it for now til later.
What dummy mummy thread? Did I miss anything?
Sorry, malaysianfeminism, you did 😐
Yes, I was going to start a discussion about parents (mothers especially) whose lives revolve around their children and how annoying they can be (I know, a little judgmental of me).
After posting that up, I did a search around the internet for ‘dummy mummy’ based on an article at The Guardian by Rachel Cooke and found that many women HATED it.
I found the article to be rather true for some parents, but others prefer to see it as child-free envy and ignorance. I know that I should stand my ground, but being an open thread I can’t rebut everything I disagree with.
Hmm, interesting. Do you plan to revive the thread anytime soon?
I think it’s high time mothers are criticized where they are supposed to. Mothers are not saints, even though society thinks so.
Yes. After a long and hard (sorry, phallic) think about motherhood and feminism.
The problem is, when mothers are criticised for loving their kids too much by other women (read: who are childless by choice and/or feminist), it’s looked upon as an attack on the fundamental nature of womanhood (i.e. nurturing, broody) – something many believe that feminists are trying hard to suppress.
There is also a sense that feminists and liberal progressives (like writers at The Guardian for example) are trying to silence mothers from voicing out what matters to them most. This is not true. What is being criticised is the relentless self-importance and self-righteousness that sometimes come with parenthood. From the over-protectiveness of helicopter parents, the chastising of single men and women who prefer a childless life, and the idea of “perfect” children raised in a “perfect” world (cue shielding children from the reality of human disability).