Just noticed another one of these "I hate my kids for behaving like kids sometimes do rather than the silent lifestyle accessory I assumed they would be, but hey I'm happy to make money off it" type articles has cropped up:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... e-son.html

In a nutshell: phone the wahmbulance. Mum plans nice "Mummy time" day out, which (comprising as it does, lunch and shopping) appears to be entirely what *she'd* want to do, and her toddler doesn't fall over himself to praise her for it. Then she rubs it in by saying she hates him sometimes, which I'm sure he'll be delighted to read when he's older.

Plus looks like the author has form for jealousy and fits of pique too:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... es-me.html

What the hell?

Who on earth takes a toddler on a shopping trip and expects them to behave? Let alone imagine it's some kind of treat for them? Shopping centres and restaurants seem almost guaranteed to induce screaming fits in toddlers. I avoid them like the plague with small kids.

I do feel that there is justification for this kind of article. I can see that this would be of value to some readers, who at least see that they are maybe not the only ones who are struggling and not the only ones who fleetingly wish they'd never had kids. It can be a pretty lonely feeling. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt in terms of her reasons for doing it.

Having said that, she didn't need to use real names, complete with a big cheesy photo spread - that's not going to help her relationship with her son in the long run.

EDIT: Just read the second article, and that does read like a load of old whinging bollocks, so the motives are looking more suspect. Unless grandpa's on the register, most young kids seem to prefer their grandparents.

So this woman called her son Paddy and now he frequently throws paddies sounds like poetic justice to me. It's just as well she didn't call him Rock or Razor then she really would have something to moan about.

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www.newshuddlines.blogspot.com

Silly bat. Most of the confrontation seems to be self-induced - as pointed out, the idea that a 3 year old would regard a trip to the shops as a treat is just bizarre - and then she gets into massive fights with him about wearing his coat and his hat. Why bother? He'll want to put them on if he gets cold.

The comments column is predictably full of people saying its her own fault for not disciplining the kid, preferably physically, which in my experience is just guaranteed to make any tantrum twice as loud and long. I must say when my kids were small I found it quite restful when they had a tantrum, at least if it was at home; once I'd checked that there wasn't anything actually wrong with them and that they were reasonably safe I just left them to it and did my own thing, secure in the knowledge that nothing I did was actually going to make any difference.

I'm beginning to think that these articles are in fact adverts. Notice how half-way through there's a plug for a new book

Now then, as has been noted, kids+shopping= ARGH! Also, I find that loving a person and liking them aren't the same thing, although they do normally overlap. Temporary bad thoughts are perfectly normal, it's when you end up stuck in "I hate my child" mode that there's a problem. This lady does sound fantastically selfish though.

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Please note: this badger is up to date with her vaccinations. She did not give your cows TB, and as such anyone attempting to kill her will be tied to a chair naked, covered in jam and positioned over a nest of very angry ants.

This is probably the element of Mail journalism which concerns me the most. I'm really going to get this one off my chest.

We all know that there are plenty of journos and interviewees ready churn out "how can I possibly survive Christmas when I can't afford Fortnum & Masons anymore" screeds, which of course make them look ridiculous, but obviously get the commentators going and will result in further commissions. They're big girls and they can look after themselves. However it's astonishing how many are quite happy to portray their own children in the worst possible light and throw them under the bus.

Two recent examples:
Regular Mail journo attacks her toddler daughter for being some sort of devil child Lolita.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... alous.html
Even one of the commentators here said she was a "revolting child" when she's probably just a normal toddler, struggling with two quite dysfunctional parents. It's not the first article Lucy Cavendish has written about how difficult she found the kid. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... IKELY.html
Mummy complains that she find the kid difficult and clingy. A year later she's complaining that the kid now clings to daddy. Hmmm, work that one out. That kid has to grow up, go to school and interact with kids whose parents read the newspapers and may hesitate let their kids engage with a child whose portrayal is more Damian from the Omen than Ottoline from Balham.

Example two
Middle class parents think educating sons more important than daughters.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... hters.html
Hello Angela Harding! You love your son so much you sent him to Millfield school where even on a scholarship it costs you £22,000 a year. However this took up all your money so you sent your daughter Poppy to the local sink comprehensive in a rough area (hello local residents!) where the teaching is inadequate (hello Poppy's teachers!) and she was horribly bullied and you failed to do anything about it (hello bullies, here's some fresh ammunition on my least favourite and unprotected child!). WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING WOMAN?????????????

This has been going on for years. Jane Gordon was frequently featured with all her children, yapping on about how she'd popped out girl and girl in the hope of producing a boy and once she finally had her precious son how she felt 'differently' about him.

Does this tripe pay enough for the kid's therapy?

And breathe...............

She sounds like rather a drama llama herself.

I remember Lowri Turner a few years ago writing an awful article about how she loved her kid and all, but if only the poor mite wasn't mixed race. You couldn't make it up <ahem>

Edit: and here's the article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... alien.html

It's not rocket science, if you don't want kids who have dark skin colour genes, don't fuck the first Asian guy you come across. Simple, really.

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"Even when you're a super-computer with an IQ of 2000 it's brown trousers time."

Reclaiming "methinks" for the nation

Latest blog post - 2011 - a review (updated 07/10)

What an excellent article by Lowri Turner. I love the way she claims to be "right-on" by virtue of the fact that "I've been to the Notting Hill Carnival". That could be the new "Some of my best friends are black".

Which basically always means "there's a black lady at work and I've always politely smiled at her in the corridor and never once spat at her, nor would I have her in my home in a million years"

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Soppy anti-British, pro-crime, anti-education, pro-immigration, anti-family nonentity

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... thing.html

Weird. 'My daughter threw a tantrum and I apologised to her' (WTF?) segues into 'mothers get blamed for everything'. Only by the DM. I am very glad I don't have to do with these revoltingly spoilt kids-of-journalists. Are they confined to the more affluent areas of North London and the Home Counties? Because I don't know any parents who would let an 8-yo get away with that, much less cower and apologise. I'd assume it was fiction except the woman's a real person.

This may be a clue as to why her child acts like that ...

I'm constantly bemused that they think it's a good idea to publicise their brats' horribleness to the world. I'd hate to be that kid going into school tomorrow.