Deborah Coddington: Pushy mums lack respect

There's a strange dichotomy in this country. On the one hand, mothers are undervalued. Men are writing letters to editors whining about a recent Family Court case in which a man was ordered to pay his ex-wife $142,000 because she sacrificed a promising career to spend 20 years raising their two children. Greedy woman, the critics opined, she'd already been awarded half the matrimonial property. Cheap at the price, I say. That's just $3500 a child per year. Try getting a nanny to work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for that much and see how far you get, Mister.

But on the other hand, we have a new breed of mothers storming around under the impression someone died and made them boss of the world. They are usually affluent, having already climbed well up the career ladder. They're having babies in their mid to late 30s, as adjuncts to their careers. Having spent a fortune getting their home and office interiors just so, they look around to see what's missing. Lo! Designer babies. Do they believe that successful lawyer/spindoctor/executive equals successful parent? Having bossed their underlings around in the workplace, what gives them the right to force reverence from the rest of us?

These uppity mothers don't just have pushchairs, they have massive all-terrain, wide-bodied wheelie en suites in which to transport the fruit of their loins. They gaggle in cafes, parking their brat-mobiles in gaps between tables, glaring at the poor childless customer who, edging around said contraption, accidentally bumps baby. Their children rampage around the cafe, ankle-kicking the waiting staff and annoying the hell out of every other customer who, contrary to the mummies' beliefs, do not think that Jack and Bella are the cutest little buttons ever created.

This permissive-in-the-extreme form of child rearing is not shared by the likes of me who, as a young and ignorant mother, did not attempt to reason with a misbehaving child. When I was a 22-year-old mum there was no, "Anais sweetie, if you tip your chair and wave your spoon then much of your fluffy will end up on that nice man's nose". More like, "Briar, if you don't sit still and drink your milk, NOW, I'll take you home."

Having downed the day's lattes, they're out in the street, more hazardous to your heels than a drunk with a shopping trolley in a supermarket. Uber-mothers only leave the cafe when their children are bored, screaming, fighting or all three. Time to cross the road and what's the road rule? Shove the pushchair out and if the baby gets it, nobody walk. Their cars - massive four-wheel-drive people movers - have "baby on board" dangling in the back window to excuse them from courtesies like letting other drivers change lanes or pull into the traffic.

So now, not content with changing pongy nappies in public, they've demanded a law change guaranteeing them the "right" to breastfeed their babies, toddlers or children wherever they legitimately find themselves when offspring are hungry. That includes restaurants, cafes, bars, churches, offices, shops - anywhere apart from someone else's private home. The Health Select Committee has considered a 9000-signature petition demanding an end to discrimination against breastfeeding after one mother was asked not to breastfeed her two-and-a-half-year-old at an early childhood centre. Well, who owns these restaurants, offices, daycare centres? The nursing mothers aren't responsible for the rent, power, cleaning, staff and tax bills. Only the person who slaves to meet these considerable overheads should have the right to decide what behaviour will be tolerated on the premises. When Parliament intervenes in breastfeeding, even the most non-libertarian Joe Bloggs must wonder if Statism's gone way too far.

I breastfed my four children and was never discriminated against because I was discreet and careful not to embarrass sensitive souls. Interestingly, I did get perved at and that raises the question: once women get the right to bring out a breast for suckling when they're in public, will they have men prosecuted for looking?

If mothers want respect they can start by respecting the desires of others in the community who actually do hold the opinion that mother's day is celebrated 365 days a year.

They just don't want it shoved in their faces, so to speak, by bossy mothers clamouring for special rights.