Well said! I think you're spot on about the moral superiority stuff and all of this put together CAN sometimes make childless women of a certain age genuinely feel like their views, feelings and opinions count for absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. The rise of Mumsnet has had a lot to do with this in recent years though as a symptom rather than a cause. I read an interesting article recently on how this collective delusion is also reflected and propagated by advertising, and it's so deeply ingrained that it's hard not to believe in it even when you don't want to.
I recently read Caitlin Moran's book How to be a Woman. She writes brilliantly on a number of subjects - I'm one of those people who tends to defend her when she says something apparently shocking and it gets taken out of context. But her chapters on childbearing upset me: a lot of what she said DID seem to imply that you gain a bunch of insights that are impossible to pick up anywhere else when you have a child - I'm sure she would deny that if questioned, but it came across that way and her follow-up chapter that was written to set out reasons why having a child is not always the best plan for everyone felt like an afterthought and a bit of a joke in places (you don't have kids - you can go sky-diving every day! etc).
But the absolute worst example of this was an article in the telegraph by a minor writer whose name I have deliberately chosen to forget who claimed that novelist Maeve Binchy would have had a 'deeper understanding of the human condition' if she had been a mother. This piece was published within hours of her obiturary - which I found deeply shocking.
no subject
I recently read Caitlin Moran's book How to be a Woman. She writes brilliantly on a number of subjects - I'm one of those people who tends to defend her when she says something apparently shocking and it gets taken out of context. But her chapters on childbearing upset me: a lot of what she said DID seem to imply that you gain a bunch of insights that are impossible to pick up anywhere else when you have a child - I'm sure she would deny that if questioned, but it came across that way and her follow-up chapter that was written to set out reasons why having a child is not always the best plan for everyone felt like an afterthought and a bit of a joke in places (you don't have kids - you can go sky-diving every day! etc).
But the absolute worst example of this was an article in the telegraph by a minor writer whose name I have deliberately chosen to forget who claimed that novelist Maeve Binchy would have had a 'deeper understanding of the human condition' if she had been a mother. This piece was published within hours of her obiturary - which I found deeply shocking.