Will someone tell Liz Jones to shut up?
Another day, another vitriolic rant against mothers, this time from the (mostly poisoned) pen of over-sharer and journalist Liz Jones in the Daily Mail. Just to give you a flavour if you can't be bothered to click the link (and we know you're busy) here's a snippet -
"The other day, a group of mums was stood in my garden - don't ask me why - and one reached up to scratch her head, probably at me and my hedonistic lifestyle, and I caught sight of her stomach with its texture and hue of cold, congealed porridge and I couldn't help but stare, aghast."
Actually the really sad part of this seemingly spontaneous spew against mothers and motherhood, is that it's all in aid of flogging Jones's new book - 'Sad, single and now living in a field' (aka The Exmoor Files: How I Lost A Husband And Found Rural Bliss). Jones, in the course of protesting once again on exactly why she didn't have children (did we miss someone asking her to have them?), continues her miserable moan on mothers who leave the office at 6pm, mothers who shop for anything but Prada in their lunch hour, and mothers who get untold riches from the family-promoting government as an added incentive to breed. She also finds time for a quick grumble about a 'friend' who momentarily misplaced her child on Jones' sprawling Somerset estate and asked (with a slight waver of panic) whether there was a pond in the grounds. Oh yes Liz - how irritating that must have been for you.
As a mother of one, in my early forties (unlike Liz I don't actually knock ten years off my age) I'm sure I'm not alone in having been an avid reader of her columns in You Magazine. I've even been known to read her celebrity interviews although I did have to draw the line at her fashion pieces - unless you're a teenage goth you really shouldn't sport dyed long black hair. It's wierd, witchy and not very flattering. But the dye job is by the by because now it's all over. Liz Jones and I are finished.
Targetting mothers whom she helpfully clumps into one obsessive, stressed, tired, badly- dressed population of dullards, is just one self-obsessed bleat too many. Liz, we don't care if you buy over-priced cashmere blankets and prawns for your cat-babies, or merrily spend the equivalent of our yearly mortgage payments on vet's fees for your knackered race horse. Because it's none of our business. As mothers - the one thing we can never ever talk about is how we might feel about women who do not have children. And neither would we want to. We aren't asking you to babysit, care or even register our lives, our children, or the sometimes extrordinarily brave struggles of some parents that get way more than they bargained for when they get knocked up. But we are happy for our children to grow up to be the tax payers who will keep the NHS going for you (and us) when we're old and infirm.
In fact we're so over you we were thinking of posting the demise of our affection (and loyalty) on site de jour relationshipobit.com. Almost, but not quite - you see we're far too busy getting on with our own lives to spend anymore time moaning about yours. You've managed to alienate the very readers who might have been happy to shell out £12.99 on your book. Perhaps it's a curious case of a back-firing PR? Who knows.
Liz Jones has a book coming out. Don't buy it, she sucks.
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