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Liz Jones - YOU magazine (Part 2)
No... but I so wanted to use the phrase "raddled old wannabe-cougar".
Consider - this 29-year-old (assuming he exists at all) lives in Florida, obviously in a tourist area. Given the totty on offer 24/7 (especially during spring break), if he's genuinely interested in a neurotic 52-year-old who looks like Morticia Adams with a migraine, I'd have to deduce he has either severe problems in the vision department, is looking for a free pass to the UK or is plain deranged.
This thread is a continuation of: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=362012&page=131
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What would I do without checking in here every day to see what wit and wisdom has been written about the witchy one?!
I don't want to eat in a nice restaurant and be deafened by a screamer, nor do I find it "cute" to watch them try and trip up the servers.
I made it through life without reserved "mummy and child" parking. Hell, I live in a place where -24C is considered balmy in the winter. I think I got frostbite a few times hiking across the parking lot.
I've been on an 8hour transatlantic flight with a chair kicker behind me.
What do all these children have in common? Parents who don't give a damn. They've learnt how to sleep through their offsprings melt-downs. Either that or they give you the "bitter old bag" look as they let the screamfest continue.
Heavens forbid that Kaylee, Jordan, or Twilight have to be removed from the premises or told to behave. Mummy might miss her time out or stiffle the sprogs "creativity" and "sense of being"
Yup, I've lived on the westcoast of North America and heard all these excuses.
I guess the supermarkets would claim that if parents with young children park closer to the store then there is less risk of them getting hit by a car.
They only run the risk of getting hit by a car if inadequately supervised.
Maybe the Supermarkets want the little "darlings" in and out as fast as possible!
And no, I'm NOT Liz.
As for supermarkets, flights etc - some parents are remiss in control of their children but (in my experience) most parents make a good effort and most children are reasonably behaved. Where they aren't, yes it is a major annoyance but that's life. It doesn't happen every day. Don't let it make you a bitter, child hater like Miss Jones!!
Oh no, Supermarkets love children and 'pester power'. That is the reason I leave mine at home when shopping - not his behaviour (which is on the whole pretty darn good)
I have yet to have a long-haul flight where I didn't have to suppress a strong urge to open the door and kick at least one child out... accompanied by its parents, who are just as bad.
However, should anyone here suffer a seat-kicker in the future, I offer this stratagem - wait until the meal is being served, then recline your seat, rapidly and all the way. It might not shut the little bugger up, but the mess it makes more than compensates.
Perhaps supermarket chains should consider setting up a shuttle bus service to take people from the further reaches of their car parks to the entrance and back to the car again or have sherpas to carry customers and their shopping. When did people stop being able to walk?
Children do not have sole rights on bad behaviour. There's just as many vilely behaved and bad mannered adults around. The majority of children and young people are ok. Today you should walk around and keep your eyes open for the majority of them who are polite and good and behaving themselves.
Please, lets stop the hate against a massive section of humanity.
I totally agree! Many children are well behaved and a pleasure to be around . I would never have dared to misbehave in a restaurant, shop or plane because I knew it was unacceptable behaviour and my children and grand children have been brought up in the same way as have the majority of their friends.
Yes there are exceptions - too many of them but Liz Jones - along with some of the posters here seem to hate all children - very frightening !
And again, it's not the children, it's the parents - and not invariably the Vicky Pollards of the world. Some of the middle-class tree-hugging liberal parents are the worst of all: their exceptional offspring cannot possibly have any behaviour problems. And flying is a whole different thing - you can't just walk away (well, you can, for a short distance, but you get my drift).
Tell me about it!
Its not that I hate children, I don't. I am just annoyed by parents who don't seem able or bothered to get their children to behave. I was brought up to behave on outings with my parents as a child and I don't see why these values should be any less applicable nowdays.
In my local supermarket, which has a pretty much middle-class clientele, the amount of times shopping has turned in to an assault course, of avoiding children spinning trolleys in circles/chasing each other at high speed or just having full on sceaming tantrums is amazingly high. I do try to shop at times when supermarkets are quieter, but sometimes I just have no choice but to go in at busy times.
Yes, isn't it odd how people who have a go at LJ for ranting turn into ranters themselves at the drop of a hat?
I don't rant often, but parents who ignore their childrens bad behaviour and let it encroach on other people's shopping experiences, deserve a mild rant inho.
As I said before, I knew better than to behave badly on trips out when I was growing up. I don't think its a bad thing at all for parents nowdays to teach their children to have good manners in public places.
As for LJ? I disagree with a lot of what she says. On this point, to a certain extent, I agree with her.
Just to add, I went for a walk around a heath area at the weekend. It was lovely to see the amount of families out with their children playing or on bikes/trikes or running around the heath land. It was great to see the children playing in the great outdoors. I don't dislike children at all. They were happy and noisy, as well I would expect them to be.
1 - this is the first time ever I've agreed with the batty old witch...
2 - I don't simply have a go at her for ranting: I have a go because she's intolerant, condescending, pompous and antagonistic towards anyone who, well, isn't like her... because she lies and forgets what she's already previously written... because she's a very poor journalist... because she's claims to be vegan but only when it suits/she remembers... but mostly because she's paid over £200,000 to peddle her twaddle.
Oh, and she's got really, really ugly knees.
Aaaannnnnnnnnndddd... this is too good an opportunity to pass up for cracking a very old joke: I don't hate children - actually, I quite like them (you can see it coming, can't you ?).
But I couldn't eat a whole one.
Ithangyow, Ithangyow...
Many of the parent and child spaces are wider so parents can open the car doors fully to enable their kids to get in and out and also to put in and take out car seats/baby carriers, etc.
I think LJ would prefer only animals and birds to be free range!
After reading the original article, a DM reader remarked on the sadness of LJ's own childhood memory of sitting quietly in the car while her Dad was in the pub(!!).
IMHO LJ and her many siblings grew up in quite a disciplined household. I seem to remember reading that her dad was an army officer (1940s/50s) - and in no way would I wish to stereotype modern army families - but I can't help wondering whether this is the origin of her rather victorian 'seen and not heard' views about children. Oh, and her tendency to bark orders and expect immediate, unquestioning acquiescence....
Anything to do with her on Google says she was born in Essex.
True... but remember, there's no record whatsoever for anyone called Elizabeth Jones born in Essex in September 1958. However, there is one for an E. Jones born in Kenya at the right time on the Army overseas Births index.
Yet another instance of her trying to live a fiction.....;)
I would suggest you try getting a wriggling baby/toddler out of a car seat in a normal space without banging the door against the car next to you. When my kids were small I rarely took them to the supermarket but I had to sometimes and I didn't care how far the spaces were from the shop- I just needed the space either side of the car especially when I was pregnant as well. I would have been more than happy for them to be at the bottom of the car park- less abuse from people who resent them being there!
Oh and I was a smug married too in those days - at least Liz would now approve of my bitter, miserable divorced existance
I'm sure she would only want the animals and birds running free there! :eek:
I just wanted to make the point that whilst I agree in part with what she said about bringing children to inappropriate places, I was not that miserable in that I don't like to see children anywhere, I fully expected to see children running around outside and had no problem with them.
Doris, I think you might have hit the nail on the head there. She definitely subscribes to the children should be seen but not heard school of thought and from what she writes, she does come across as someone who barks out orders and could easily have been a Sgt Major in another life.
The main thing I have got against her is her arrogance and bitterness towards people who choose a different lifestyle to her. Coupled with her rudeness towards retail assistants and her view that owning as many designer labels as possible make you a better person.
She comes across as a sad and bitter individual.
That struck me, too, when I read the article. It's a very sad image, the child being left to sit quietly in the car while dad's in the pub. Even sadder is the fact that Liz doesn't seem to recognise this experience as something that she has a right to feel hurt about. Instead she seemed to cite it in a positive way, as if she thinks it would be better if children were still treated like that. As much as I disagree with her skewed thinking, I actually feel quite sorry for her over this particular incident (and I'm one of her biggest critics on this thread!) because it seems sad that someone so ready to criticise everyone else seems unable to recognise a fault in her own parent, particularly a fault that may have partially contributed to making her the troubled person she is today.
I guess it's yet another example of her inability to examine past mistakes (in this case her parents', not her own) and recognise that there's a better way to do things. Her comment about being left in the car reminds me of when people say things like "My dad used to hit me and it never did me any harm, so I give my kids a clout whenever they're naughty." They genuinely can't see the contradiction there, because they can't bring themselves to look at their parent's actions and find fault with them.
Sorry, wandered off the subject a bit there!