Editorial: Mothers can do without advice

There are three pregnant women in the news room. I deliberately avoid advising them on anything.

When you become a mother everyone thinks they have the right to chime in. From the mother-in-law, to the coffee group shrew, to the stranger in the street, everyone knows better than you what is right for your child.

Then there are the herds of health groups, self-appointed lobby groups and stream of "experts" who send you on a daily guilt trip as you battle the mother load.

This week I'm exhausted. Not from juggling three loads of washing, three lunch boxes and three wriggly kids each morning before a day's work, but from all the negative noise about mothers.

If we breast feed, our photos are tossed out by Facebook.

If we bottle feed we are shamed by the health system.

If our kids make noise we are chucked out of cafes. If we stay at home, we can't even afford to buy our kids milk.

If we find a job that suits school hours, we are told to be grateful on the extra 50 cents more per hour on the minimum wage stacking shelves even if we were a rocket scientist before kids.

Or if we return to fulltime work because parental leave runs out, we are guilty of stressing the life out of our poor kids by leaving them in daycare as charged by this week's report by a British psychologist whose wild claims in the past included that television causes early puberty. The report was commissioned by the curiously named Family First group who appear to want mothers to stay at home with the kids, yet also have the right to hit them.

Not only is energy spent, but thousands of dollars investigating what we do wrong as mothers. The truth is that most mums do the very best they can with what they are given.

Whether it's breast, bottle, cloth nappy or Huggies, organic parsnips or mashed banana.

Whether it's the cheap and cheerful daycare down the road or the Preschool for Little Geniuses, most of us just want the best for our kids. We are not perfect. We make mistakes but it does not warrant such epic outpouring of public advice and expenditure on reports that do nothing to help us with the practicalities of life.

Most New Zealand mothers do a damn good job, given we have one of the highest costs of living, highest costs of quality childcare, lowest wages and shortest parental leave systems in the developed world.

In all this noise, strange there has been little said about the mother who ripped out her daughter's toenails, and left her locked up starving and dehydrated in a cupboard.

Little noise, little outrage, little money and little action about the minority of mothers who do not do the best for our children at all.

A baby brought up in a loving home whether on the breast or bottle doesn't need protecting. Neither does the child sent to a good daycare with loving carers so that his mother can fund his food and shelter.

Time we turned the focus from beating up mothers to mothers who beat up kids.

And experts, unless you are going to iron the uniforms or get up in the middle of the night to change the sheets, be quiet.