I'm taking a time out probably until Monday, but before I go, I will leave with you this sugary excerpt, which just reinforces my antagonism to Supernanny and to other shows that make a mockery of the complexity of parenting and of children:
Sure, Supernanny remains
must-watch TV for millions, bookshop shelves are cluttered with
child-raising manuals and newspapers continue to report a constant
stream of advice from the government and official bodies on how to
raise children and run family life. It remains true that it’s a rare
mum or dad who doesn’t obsess about their child’s safety, diet,
educational attainment, social skills and general wellbeing. But it was
inevitable that the current level of scrutiny given to private family
life, and the social expectation that not only does ‘every child
matter’ but that we should always be ‘putting children first’, would
rustle up resentment.
And so it has – particularly among many middle-class mums who, while often believing that other people need advice and intervention, resent being addressed themselves in the patronising tones of expert advice. Having been sold a philosophy that the general troublesomeness of children is the product of dysfunctional parenting, they struggle to explain and accept their own battles at bed times, meal times, bath times and more or less any time when something needs to be done. Having been sold a promise that parenting ‘when done properly’ is stimulating, engaging and rewarding, they are bemused and frustrated with the stultifying tedium that comprises so much of domestic life. A domestic crisis becomes a personal crisis of being; it wasn’t meant to be this way.
“The slummy mummy rebellion is about as full of insight as a toddler’s tantrum”
This mother-malcontent has been reflected in an ever-growing genre of mummy-lit that sticks up two fingers at the orthodoxy of perfect parenting, pokes it in the eye and celebrates the dysfunctional chaos that is normal family life. But while we take to our hearts the fictional mothers who distress shop-bought mince pies to make them look home-made for the school cake sale, and we smile at tales of ‘cocktail playgroups’ serving martinis to mums, we put the books down unsatisfied. However entertaining they might be, they seem shallow; as raucous as a cheap laugh. This is because the reaction is just a reaction, and as full of insight as a toddler’s tantrum. Just as a two-year-old refuses to behave and tears the ribbon out of her hair, so the self-styled slummy mummy refuses to behave and reaches for the Chablis.
And so it has – particularly among many middle-class mums who, while often believing that other people need advice and intervention, resent being addressed themselves in the patronising tones of expert advice. Having been sold a philosophy that the general troublesomeness of children is the product of dysfunctional parenting, they struggle to explain and accept their own battles at bed times, meal times, bath times and more or less any time when something needs to be done. Having been sold a promise that parenting ‘when done properly’ is stimulating, engaging and rewarding, they are bemused and frustrated with the stultifying tedium that comprises so much of domestic life. A domestic crisis becomes a personal crisis of being; it wasn’t meant to be this way.
“The slummy mummy rebellion is about as full of insight as a toddler’s tantrum”
This mother-malcontent has been reflected in an ever-growing genre of mummy-lit that sticks up two fingers at the orthodoxy of perfect parenting, pokes it in the eye and celebrates the dysfunctional chaos that is normal family life. But while we take to our hearts the fictional mothers who distress shop-bought mince pies to make them look home-made for the school cake sale, and we smile at tales of ‘cocktail playgroups’ serving martinis to mums, we put the books down unsatisfied. However entertaining they might be, they seem shallow; as raucous as a cheap laugh. This is because the reaction is just a reaction, and as full of insight as a toddler’s tantrum. Just as a two-year-old refuses to behave and tears the ribbon out of her hair, so the self-styled slummy mummy refuses to behave and reaches for the Chablis.
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