HELEN KIRWAN-TAYLOLR asks, Sorry, but my children bore me to death! | the Daily Mail: "Am I a lazy, superficial person?" Answer: Yes.

Really, this woman never, ever should have had kids. Everyone would be much better off. She wouldn't be burdened by the pain and torment of responsibility and the kids wouldn't need the countless hours of therapy they'll inevitably get.

Other gems from the article include:

They don't show the husband legging it to the pub so he doesn't have to change a nappy, either.


Your husband is an ass, this can't be a surprise by the time you're having kids. You mean a shallow, self-centered woman married a shallow, self-centered man? What are the odds?

(but not dads, of course, who have a ready-made excuse for being out of the house all day because they 'have to go to work').


Damn that husband and his pesky mortgage. Darling Dear, how do you suppose you can afford all those shopping trips you go on instead of raising your kids?

Besides, in my view, making a child your career is a dangerous move because your marriage and sense of self can be sacrificed in the process.


Sacrifice? Run! Run for the hills! If your kids are not more important to you than your marriage, I submit there is something wrong with you. Ditto your "sense of self" or any other dopey "Me Generation" crap.


Our parents would never cancel an adult activity to get us to a soccer game. They would often not show up for our games or school plays, and, as a consequence, they never witnessed our great triumphs or were there to comfort us in our humiliations. As a result, our generation said we would do it differently.'


Yet here you are making the same mistakes your parents made. Bravo.

'Their demand for external support is enormous,' says Kati St Clair. 'They enter the real world totally ill-prepared. You damage a child just as much by giving them extreme attention as you do by ignoring them altogether. Both are forms of abuse.'


So after defining your preferred parenting model as abuse, you go on to trumpet your wisdom?

This, of course, makes mothers like me — who love their children but refuse to cater to their every whim — feel vindicated. By sticking to our guns, we have unwittingly created children who can do things like make up stories (very few kids can any more).


How can you say you love your kids if they bore you to tears? No one is suggesting you "cater to their every whim". That is strawman at its finest. You can't be bothered to take them to the park!

Because I have categorically said: 'I am not a waitress, a driver or a cleaner,' my children have learned to put away their plates and tidy up their rooms. They've become brilliant planners, often inviting their friends to come for the weekend (because I've forgotten to bother).


There's a mountain of difference between making your kids self-reliant and treating them as an annoyance. I hope your kids treat you better in your later years than you treated them in their formative ones.

Frankly, as long as you've fed them, sheltered them and told them they are loved, children will be fine. Mine are — at the risk of sounding smug — well-adjusted, creative children who respect the concept of work. They also accept my limitations.


Frankly, telling them you love them when everything you do flies in the face of that statement I'm sure it rings quite hollow. Will your kids tell you they love you with a wave as they disappear out the door to go off with friends when you are bedridden and alone? Will you call them and tell them you need their help because you just can't get around like you used to and can't cook for yourself? Will they tell you they'd love to help but frankly, your invalidity is just boring?

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.


So they're shutting you out already and you're too blind to see. Either that or you're happier that way. Good luck, you're going to need it.

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