East Dulwich in the New Statesman

[SeanMacGabhann]

That's the thing with forums paulino - the EDF isn't "a voice", it's whoever happens to be posting at the time

I think a lot of the people knocking the writer also defended mothers when others were having a pop in the past to be fair

[????]

As Sean said, there are a few but they get a relative similar response from defenders and attackers...all a bit tedious but I miss it when we haven't hado one for a while..

Come back Lenk.....maybe

[first mate]

stillthinking108 Wrote:

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> I agree with what too few people have said on

> here, that the article is entirely true. I moved

> to the area only 4 or 5 months ago, just up from

> Nunhead Green, by the cememtery. Nunhead seems to

> be full of Irish and African people. Peckham Rye

> is a great mix of cultures, my personal favorite

> is the 'Irish-Jamaican Butchers'. But the first

> time I walked into Dulwich, I saw less and less

> Irish people, less and less African or Jamaican

> people, and more and more middle class white mums

> who seemed to be engaged in some kind of maternal

> arms race, its as though the fetish of oversized

> 4x4s has now spilled over into the world of

> pushchairs.

Why is a place "full of" of Irish, African and Jamaican people preferable to one with "more" middle class white people. Surely if one celebrates diversity to say an area "full of" of any particular group is preferable to another is contradictory?

[Brendan]

dulwichmum Wrote:

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>

> Stillthinking108, tell me dear heart, how does one

> spot an Irish person? Do they come in several

> different classes or are they all the same? I

> hear they are a very homely lot...

By their green waistcoats and the buckles on their hats DM.

[SeanMacGabhann]

to be sure

[Nero]

Why the word 'mom'? What a tool to use it. If he wanted to go the whole-American hog, he should've had said 'stroller moms'.

[TJ]

I hope he enjoys his inevitable stint in IVF - not a subject for jokes really.

[njc97]

Re Ted Max's post, I didn't find this postespecially humorous - in fact, I never got the feeling that the author was attempting humour. However, inside the faux rage, there was more than a degree of truth and a truth that some on here seem to find a little uncomfortable. So, a successful post.

SOME OF THESE WOMEN ARE QUITE FIT BUT THEY WON'T EVEN LOOK AT ME, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE A GIG WRITING ON A NATIONAL MAGAZINE AND THEY SHOULD BE GLAD OF MY PRESENCE. IT MUST BE BECAUSE THEY ARE SELFISH, INFERTILE OLD BOOTS, AND NOT BECAUSE I AM A SMALL RED FACED MAN WITH EGG ON MY JACKET AND NON-MATCHING LACES.

[The Nappy Lady]

I suspect a lot of the women are not being intentionally rude at all, they are simply exhausted, stressed and/or worrying about why baby isn't sleeping/how on earth they are going to get the housework done/how they are going to cope financially when their maternity pay runs out etc. etc. and don't even realise that they have just blanked you/run over your foot etc. etc.

The mothers I meet in East Dulwich are far from being so called 'Yummy Mummys', I think you'll find most of them in North and West London.

[ayresc]

superb, you have to laugh!

I thought I was the only one that thought some of the buggy brigade were 'militant'!

[Brendan]

I for one agree wholeheartedly. If history has taught us one thing it?s that if you are embittered and want to have a go at someone who you perceive as ?other? from yourself, women with young children are the ones to go for. I suggest throwing stones. They?ll never catch you with all that gear to carry.

Mothers with infants ?ey. What a shower of cunts.

[The Nappy Lady]

Shocking isn't it...and to think everyone on here was a baby once, with a mother, and possibly a HUGE silvercross pram.

[Loz]

Good lord, Brendan - what sort of history books were you taught with? Don't recall that happening much myself. Moses's flight from Egypt with a pram or two? Krystallnacht with bugaboos?

[Ted Max]

I'm not sure if there is record of Joseph swaddling the infant Messiah in a papoose for the flight into Egpyt. But I'm pretty sure he and Mary wore matching sandals and were heard bemoaning the lack of free WiFi in the Inn as they queued for their Lar-tays (decaf for her, she's breastfeeding, and if that offends you then you're the ones with the issues, Magi).

No wonder Herod wanted rid.

[Brendan]

Wasn?t Moses found in a buggy floating down a canal?

[Hornpipe]

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments made about militant breastfeeding in public. Every time I see one of these sickos doing it, I lament the decline of humankind as we know it.

I'd recommend doing what I do - keep your baby in the basement and feed it Hula Hoops under the cloak of nightfall. That way, there's no need for physical contact and no one realises you're a mother, so you can continue to be part of normal East Dulwich society.

Anyway, I haven't got time to discuss this. I'm off down Lordship Lane to ram fat people's ankles with my Bugaboo. I think we'd all agree that these overeaters are simply taking up too much room on the pavement?

As you were...

[DrDom]

"But the first time I walked into Dulwich, I saw less and less Irish people"

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

They all hang about by the irish shop and the St Thomas Moore Catholic Club. Can't miss them, flat caps and ginger hair...

[candj]

DrDom Wrote:

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> "But the first time I walked into Dulwich, I saw

> less and less Irish people"

>

> ??????????????????????????????????????????????????

> ??????????????????????????????????????????????????

> ????????

>

> They all hang about by the irish shop and the St

> Thomas Moore Catholic Club. Can't miss them, flat

> caps and ginger hair...

Crikey I just realised that I'm living with one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DrDom]

aaaahhh!! I just realised I am one too!! I better move out to Nunhead!!!

[MrBen]

I'm yet to grab my Club magazine and a jam jar. But I'm guessing that having your first little one probably does result in one becoming a little absorbed and understandably so no? And do you not need to go through this major life experience in order to understand?

So where this spills into a little selfishness on the mean pavements of SE22 I can personally tolerate it - even when I got politely kicked out the Mag for Friday baby club. I got more important shit to worry about man.

[pepsi]

The Nappy Lady Wrote:

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> I suspect a lot of the women are not being

> intentionally rude at all, they are simply

> exhausted, stressed and/or worrying about why baby

> isn't sleeping/how on earth they are going to get

> the housework done/how they are going to cope

> financially when their maternity pay runs out etc.

> etc. and don't even realise that they have just

> blanked you/run over your foot etc. etc.

>

>

I'm sure this is true BUT these issues of people being overstretched and tired when they have young children have been around since long before the current trend of people behaving as if they are more important than those without children. Not all parents are like this of course but there are a significant number around who could do with being a little less selfish. The point of this guy's article is a relevant one but he could have made it more amusing.

[????]

Sounds an interesting piece of academic research - can you point me to the source? Thanks

[pepsi]

???? Wrote:

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> >

> Sounds an interesting piece of academic research -

> can you point me to the source? Thanks

Oh come on, what a daft response - parents being "exhausted, stressed, worrying about the baby sleeping, worrying about finances" etc. You don't need academic research to tell you that these things are hardly a 21st century malady. Some people behave as if having children has only just been invented!

[????]

sounds like a change in behaviour identified in some rigourous research to me

[legalbeagle]

Pepsi et al make an interesting assumption: that the rudeness genuinely occurs because these parents think they are better than, or more important than other pavement users. I don't doubt there are some people who are that rude, there are in every group of people. But as a general assumption I think it is just rubbish. Put yourself in this position for just a moment. You have two children under 2 years so to go anywhere you need a double buggy and try as you did to find a small one, they are by nature huge. You are recovering from surgery/a difficult birth and find the weight that you are having to push around incredibly heavy and not a little cumbersome. And you haven't been to sleep properly for a wee while now. When someone walks towards you on a crowded pavement, it is kind of tempting to think that it is far easier for them to move out of your way than the other way round. Because it is in fact easier for them to do so. These women may not be being deliberately rude, or think they are better than you, but you can see how it might come across like that? We can all get absorbed in our own world's and forget how other perceive us, can't we? This city really does feel sometimes like no one has the time of day for children, who are just an irritation wherever they are found, and that makes me genuinely sad. It might also explain why some mothers have started to act aggressively in response. I don't like rudeness either but I think we'd all get on a lot better if we tried walking in other people's shoes once in a while.