I leave the op-shop with a tantruming kid under each arm: Nell screams for a baby and Lucy screams for a wedding dress.

Feminist mothering : 0
Patriarchy: 2

I take all my parenting tips from the Hollywood stars

I never thought Angelina Jolie and I had much in common, save for us both being partnered up to hotties and looking awkward when we wear high heels. But turns out, we share the greatest bond of all: we're really crap mothers.

I think women's magazines are poisonous, what with their misogyny and those dodgy clairvoyants, so I never read them, save in doctors' surgeries (when it's like anaesthetic to dull the one hour wait for my four o'clock appointment) and the chip and fizzy drink aisle of Coles, where I wander forlornly, wondering who thought getting rid of Atomic Tomato flavoured crisps was a justifiable way forward for Samboy. And here I read that grave fears are held for Ange and Brad's kids. Grave fears are held because there'll be six under six (I only ever got to two under two), the kids fight, they're jealous of each other and they're given junk food (which according to a dietician is a 'ticking time bomb') to eat. Truly, these kids are doomed, damned and betrayed by such cruelty, as their clearly disturbed behaviour (Pushing! Fighting over toys!) shows.

I have no idea if any of the reports are true (though I tend to doubt the reliability of 'sources' and 'those close to the couple') or if people believe them, and can't think it actually affects A & B in anyway to have this written about them, but it really shits me that these kinds of messages are spewed into my world for the punters' weekly dose of moral indignation.

In the last day or so Nell, Lu or both have:

* eaten marshmallows and green cordial before bed and then fallen asleep without brushing their teeth;
* watched the whole series of Walking With Dinosaurs, twice;
* Eaten paint;
* Eaten chook food (in my defense, it was organic);
* Head butted and body slammed each other; in one memorable instance, Lucy kicked Nell in the face and Nell bit her toe (just like those python crushing the elephant/ elephant falls to the ground and crushes the python scenarios);
* Competed constantly for my attention;
* Screamed loudly and annoyingly in public places;
* Always wanted what the other one had;;
* Tantrumed because there'd be no playing in the dog park mud today.

And while I don't think these reflect the very best parenting practices and kiddie attitudes, I'm okay with all this (perhaps a little worried about the paint). Because I'm a good parent and my kids are good kids.

That magazine had a lot in common with the brouhaha over the 'I hate kids' posts a month or so ago, over at feministing. The posts annoyed me but I was really pissed off by the comments, here and at other sites, that often took a 'tolerant' stand of 'I don't blame the kids, I blame the parent'. People's whining about kids behaving badly reflects a belief that a) kids spring fully formed from the head of Zeus, all clued up on social rules and self-discipline; b) have no claim to freedom of movement or freedom of association; and c) that adults conform to social, legal and moral rules (cf. any early Saturday morning outside of the Saloon on Charles Street/ any other pub anywhere).

And I'm kind of sick of people holding parents to a standard of behaviour, a clarity of judgement, a commitment to purpose, that we don't expect of the childless. I'm not talking about systematic cruelty or on-going abuse but the daily stumblings as we try our best. People are fine about their 'addiction' to chocolate, their lazy Friday take-out noodles, their bludging in front of the telly, their spending money on expensive shoes instead of rent, their failed attempts to start exercising or whatever other quirky vices we all lay claim to. And that's fine, because we are all lazy and tired and forgetful and all the other things that stop us being The Very Best We Can Possibly Be. Yes, I do have a duty to my kids' welfare that is different to the duty we as adults have to our own selves, but my kids eat a lot less junk food and watch a lot less telly than the average Australian who frowns when the girls eat a brownie and whine annoyingly amongst a self-satisfied cafe crowd.

And I think there's a kind of irony in that magazine, with that article, sitting right next to the Salt and Vinegar chips and the Fanta in Coles.

Just when I thought I'd won the war

A & M are coming over with their baby daughter, H, and their boy, B, who's Lucy's age and someone she plays comfortably with.

Me: We have visitors coming over. You need to put on some clothes. No nude-ness when we have guests.
Lu: No. Pants off is fine.
Me: No. You can wear trousers or you can wear a dress. What's it to be?
Lu: Hmm, a dress. B likes to see me in a dress.

How? What? Where? WTF? I'm not sure B can even say dress. I've never said anything like that; I don't know a woman who would. I don't know a man who'd hold a preference (or at least speak it in those terms). It sounds like bad dialogue from a soap - 'girl talk' to establish 'character'. But we don't watch that kind of thing.

I thought the enemy was at the gates but it turns out we've been infiltrated.

I am quietly freaking out and switched into remedial feminist indoctrination mode. And casting suspicious looks at everyone.

It's not academic

Today my friend Sue caught me up on the lives of a group of women with who I shared my uni years. That email made me sad and angry. We are all in the crunch years: early thirties (okay, early-mid), early career, early parenthood. Our lives can be summed up by a list of struggles: debt, housing stress, alcohol abuse, social isolation, marginalisation and small cruelties at work, unsympathetic parents, relationship breakdowns, depression, illness, anxiety, sleeplessness and a general desperation, experienced in varying degrees on different days.

We are women who have benefited from the social structures within which we were born and within which we have worked. We're tertiary educated to the nth degree, we've got well paying jobs and go-ahead careers (albeit some temporarily suspended). Most of us met in law school and through a misogynist debating society - we know how to argue. We're trained up in the theoretical bases and practical applications of feminism. We've subverted, deconstructed and stormed the barricades. In short, if you wanted a group of women to embody structural privilege, you could take our photo: Structural privilege, Class of 2007. Also, we are tough, we work really hard, and we take limited amounts of sh*t. Plus, we all have really great hair. And we're funny.

So, I don't really want to hear another person tell me that women bring career stagnation/ anxiety/ illness/ financial difficulties/ loneliness upon themselves because we don't work hard enough/ work too hard/ put our children in childcare or alternatively, don't look after ourselves/ aren't careful with money or alternatively, spend it all on childcare when it would make more financial sense to stay at home or alternatively, choose to stay home and thus need to suck up the financial implications of that choice/ don't make an effort to keep up with friends or alternatively, bore our friend because all we do is talk about our kids and would it kill us to see a movie with subtitles once in a while because it sure would make us more interesting. Because between us we have tried every variation of the options available and motherhood is still damn hard. Women do not bring 'it' - whatever 'it' might be - upon themselves. And given how hard it is for women who have vast personal, social and financial resources available to them, I can't comprehend what it must be like for those who have so much less.

Now I could provide a very elegant and theoretically informed discourse on why this is the case. But I don't really want to do that today. I just want to say, it makes me sad to know the sparkling and brilliant girls of my youth are being squeezed on all sides, and I feel so powerless, finally knowing for sure we can't change the system from without or within. And I'm also really proud that we are all really, really good mums and good people despite and because of the ways we deal with the love and sadness of being a mother. I would also like to say to any teenage girl who tells me feminism has gone to far, "Sweetheart, just you wait".