Freelance journalist Helen Kirwan-Taylor, has caused an uproar after the Daily Mail tabloid* published her first-person essay headed, "Sorry, but my children bore me to death!"
Kirwan-Taylor is married with two boys aged 10 and 12 – whom she says she loves, but just doesn’t enjoy spending any time with them. She writes, “To be honest, I spent much of the early years of my children's lives in a workaholic frenzy because the thought of spending time with them was more stressful than any journalistic assignment I could imagineâ€. To fill the role of ‘mother’ that she finds so offensive, she has employed nannies to tend to her boys needs and wants. The boys are fully aware of their mother’s attitude and as Kirwan-Taylor writes, have “stopped asking me to take them to the park 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.'â€
While some people have come out in her defense, by stating that they too feel the same way about children; most call her a “bad motherâ€, and a “selfish person†who “should never have had childrenâ€. I added my opinion to a couple of logs by saying:
As I said above, it is great to hear of more women not giving in to their hormones and surrounding social pressures to become mothers. The reason these women have decided not to indulge in this decadence has nothing to do with them being consciously aware that motherhood is 100% selfish, or that women are extremely detrimental to the psychological health of children – no, they choose not to have children because they have found other ways to have their emotional needs met: career, pets, money, men, fashion, toys, travel, etc.It is great to read that quite a few women have made the decision not to have children. I’ve had two of them, and what I’ve learnt from them I could just as easily have learnt from observing other people’s children.
Having children is a 100% selfish act. It gives most women their entire existence. From indulging in this narcissistic decadence, they also receive acceptance and acknowledgment by society.
So it is great to read that there are some women out there willing to face society’s wrath by refusing to live their lives through children - if only more women were willing to do the same.
Both my children know my views on women. They have their own views. They also know that I do not expect them to do anything for me in the future – because my children were not raised to be my slaves.
So, all up, I don’t think that Kirwan-Taylor is a bad mother; neither do I think that she is a good mother. Like all mothers, she is just a parasite, who uses her offspring to live through. Okay, she may not find them and their lives all that interesting, but that is of no consequence, as through her relationship with her two boys she is given her status and focus in life.
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Sue
*www.dailymail.co.uk