Friday, March 20, 2009

Bringing Up Baby Redux- Angela Shanahan's Just Bung 'Em Out Approach

In case you hadn't had your fill of inconsistent, offensive and hypocritical parenting lectures after watching Bringing up Baby, here's Angela Shanahan demonstrating that complete inability to watch and comprehend is no barrier to giving poofs, single parents and us modernz generally a good old fashioned lecture:


Of course so much of the problem with modern parenting is modern families....

...How odd that we make a fuss about infant management techniques but are willing to subject our children to bizarre social experiments such as same-sex parenting ... much more harmful than any infant management technique could be...


Of course, why didn't I see that? There's more problems though- people are interested in parenting:


My research has uncovered 926 book titles available in Australia under the heading of parenting and child care, and that does not include the magazines and associated DVDs. The size of the market is astonishing when one compares it with the popular self-help categories of diet and weight loss.

WHERE'S THE PRIORITIES FOR TODAY'S YOOF?

Naturally she's got a good grasp of her subject matter, first lampooning Spock then going on to rave about the virtues of parents trusting their instincts. Waasn't that, um, what Spock was about? And this:


...by the more selfish members of generations X and Y, his child-centred methods didn't always work.

By contrast with the previous generation? Or the ones before that, they did pretty well didn't they?

But here's the really grating bit for me:


I hope my regular readers will not be disappointed to know that although I have managed to have nine children, and am now the hands-on grandmother of three, I have never read a baby book.

That would be to avoid the discussion questioning the motives of people who choose to pop out large numbers of children? Of course, she's a brilliant mum to each and every one of them, remembers their names and all. Just ask her.

Is it possible a pair of gays who love and pay close attention to their 1 or 2 children and willingly read and absorb a range of views on how to parent are likely to do just as good a job as an arrogant reactionary who thinks popping out enough kids to staff their own McDonald's franchise is proof enough good parenting.

She lauds the brilliant work of the

Royal New Zealand Plunket Society


Presumably the oddball name means Plunk It Out and Start on the Next One?

Having a large sprawl doesn't prove you aren't a good parent, I hasten to add, but I think you'd have to take some pretty decent steps to ensure you could pay them all a decent about of attention, and it certainly doesn't work in converse as some sort of proof, in itself, that you are a brilliant parent who can stand aloof and lecture the world. Or get away with mindless homophobic and reactionary gittery.

How DO these idiots get published in the MSM?

4 comments:

JahTeh said...

I always love these parents who have lots of children because they don't actually do all the upbringing. It's left to the eldest, 2nd eldest and so on to pile in and take up the baby sitting, dishes, washing etc. In the bad old days it was unavoidable without family planning so everyone did help out including the spinster aunts.
I'd like to hear from her nine children about her child rearing talents.

Ann ODyne said...

I followed your link and read the drivel - "when you have children you find out who you are" WTF?
Did AS find out she's a rabbit?
She claims to have not read a 'baby book' but then claims to know all about the Karitane founder.

I paricularly want to projectile vomit on her for her summary:

"Men and women are complementary. Fathers are lifelong learners but it is the mother who has the guiding instinct. So having children as early as possible with a loving father who is a willing learner"

Daniel Valerio, Baby P, Robert Fritzl - all parents hetero in those 3 ugly messes.

Tell her she's dreaming.

She probably agrees with the Vatican City that condoms cause A.I.D.S.

Ann ODyne said...

... but wait, I have more tofling at her:
she espouses the Good Old Days, then claims a succession of step-parents is bad for modern children, thereby proving that not only has she read no 'baby books', but possibly hasn't read any history books either - the ones detailing the many deaths of mothers in the Victorian era, and subsequent remarriages of the fathers.
The worst real case of this in Victoria last century, was the boy whose mother died and father remarried; then the father died and the stepmother remarried.
Eventually the subsequent 'couple' realised they had no interest in the kid - so they left him by the road when they moved out of town (Smythesdale actually).
I wish the mis-named Angela had read that story.

Kris said...

AS never ceases to give me the shits, for her lack of logic, self-satisfaction and general reactionary nastiness.

But what got me here was her classic move of taking a social problem and turning it into the individual failings of women who don't do what she did. I think it's kind of sad some of us are so nervous about raising kids, and we do often question our abilities. But that's not so much an issue of control/ selfishness and more about the sometimes overwhelming social message of: "you are not doing it right", that calls into question women's choices, whatever they might be.

Also, gripe water: is she kidding?