What's for dinner? And other atrocities.
Written August 2026
The internet age has brought with it many disturbing side effects, not least the erosion of the rather likeable human quality of decorum. People of all walks of life have been captured, lured into the world of TikTok, to film themselves participating in the latest “trend” in the hope of getting a few clicks and likes. Perhaps I’m just a humourless bore, but I am not the least amused or entertained by watching grown adults flopping to the ground because someone’s shouted “Andy’s coming” within earshot. Throwing a bucket of ice-cold water over your head and sharing the footage with the world, ostensibly in the name of charity, didn’t float my boat, either. Mindless self-humiliation rituals, rebranded as wacky and hilarious, I guess it’s just not by bag. Some of these trends have indeed been quite disturbing, proving that the allure of seeing oneself online, even in an unflattering light, often bypasses a person’s capacity for wisdom and dignity. At one point in the not-too-distant past, parents were filming themselves throwing cheese slices at their babies and laughing hysterically at the resulting shock and tears of their poor, confused offspring. Sometimes, it really does feel like humanity is done.
Anyway, at the risk of being labelled heartless and anti-feminist, there is a behaviour even worse than mindless banality displayed for all to see, and it comes in the shape of mothers hell bent on reframing motherhood as victimhood. We have seen various iterations of this phenomenon, such as the insufferable bloggers and Instagrammers, who garner huge followings for talking about their “motherloads” and the distaste they feel for their husbands. Women like Paige Connell, who has made an entire career out of shaming her husband for atrocities like asking “what’s for dinner?”
Empowering stuff, eh? For those who want to hear the ball-breaking Bostonian explaining this on video, massive hand gestures and all, you can do so here. Be prepared, though. She’s like an animated definition of “insufferably high maintenance”.
Connell is far from alone in her enterprise, there are many just like her, churning out podcasts and self-help empowerment messaging for modern mums. The “Mothersphere” to counter the “Manosphere”, perhaps. And, just recently, a version of this self-indulgent feminism has had me rolling my eyes so hard I feared they may not return to their rightful position. For those who may not know, there is a high-profile court case currently playing out in the US, where mother, Lindsay Clancy, is on trial for murdering her three children. Her defence is postpartum psychosis. As my regular readers will not be surprised to hear, the level of coverage this case is receiving leaves me with a measure of doubt as to its authenticity, but that said, I have not delved in (yet), and the case itself is not what I wanted to write about here. We do know that the public are gruesomely fascinated by cases such as this, so perhaps it did happen, and the press are, as is its nature, simply exploiting a very real tragedy. It is, in fact, the public’s morbid fascination with cases such as this that allows psyops to be successful.
What I do wish to highlight, however, is the disturbing trend, “Same, Lindsay”, that has been spreading around social media, spawned from the blanket coverage of this potentially tragic case. The trend involves mums of the Mothersphere variety, filming themselves crying, whilst holding their children, with the caption “Same, Lindsay” displayed across the screen, while playing loops of audio from the trial, in which entries from Clancy’s diary are read aloud by a suitably bombastic lawyer. In fairness, there has been a significant backlash to this trend, and it appears that many of the videos have been taken down. There are a few remaining, an example here, and there are many commentators who have used compilations on their own videos, such as this one.
The implication, of course, is that these women feel that they understand Clancy’s actions, and that they, too, feel pushed to the limits by the burden of motherhood. The reality, however, is that they are instead narcissistic chancers, jumping on a bandwagon for online attention, views and likes. Postpartum psychosis is a real, and very terrifying condition. For these women to compare the normal, garden variety strain of motherhood with such a serious and desperate sickness is, well, quite sick. It proves that ordinary, perhaps slightly dull people, will use literally any high-profile story, no matter how appalling, and the vehicle of social media, to lift themselves – in their minds, at least – to something more interesting or exciting. It is a particularly abhorrent brand of “me, me, me”. Imagine some 15 years from now, the unfortunate children of these TikTok mums conceivably coming across their mothers’ videos. What would that feel like? How would a mother explain such a self-centred and showboating stunt? “Sorry, darling, I wasn’t really one small step away from killing you, I promise. I just didn’t want to be left out”. Perhaps that’s what it boils down to for most, a chronic dose of FOMO.
I am in no way intending to come across as flippant or dismissive of postpartum psychosis, but it should be noted that it is a very rare condition, estimated to affect around 1-2 in every 1,000 births. I reiterate, I have no idea whether Lindsay Clancy is truly guilty of the crimes she is supposedly on trial for, or if indeed the case is real. I have, however, known two cases of women suffering postpartum psychosis (not, I stress, leading to any deaths, thankfully), and it is horrific. Both women, incidentally, had been already prescribed and were actively taking antidepressant medication prior to their unfortunate bouts of postpartum psychosis. Make of that what you will. The symptoms of this extremely serious mental illness include suicidal thoughts, even thoughts of taking your child or children with you, as well as visual and audible hallucinations, and it is surely a most frightening illness to experience. But it should go without saying that this is not simply a reaction to taking care of your children, but instead a significant and severe mental condition that requires intervention. As opposed to the usual, and what might be considered normal, feelings that most new mothers will feel in the first weeks and months of their babies’ lives. Suddenly responsible for this tiny bundle of human life, naturally as a new mother there is a relative amount of fear and trepidation. There is the worry that you might get it wrong, or that something will be wrong with your precious baby. And alongside these feelings, you are floored by the immense feelings of love that flood over you. It is almost impossible to describe, except to say that it feels as if nobody could possibly understand the sheer volume of love you feel for this child.
Remembering those early weeks, months and years with my daughter is what has prompted such a visceral hatred from me for the odious women who have chosen this area of their lives, their roles as mothers, as the vessel with which they seek to elevate their own importance. These are surely the same sort of women who fill their homes with affirmational quotes on walls and cushions, or five-feet high neon letters explicitly stating that “This is our Happy Place”. The kind of women who tell themselves, and anyone else who will listen, that “I am enough”. Quite frankly, if you cannot get through a day of parenting without alleging despair and recording a video about it, then no, you are not enough. Grow up. Your children deserve better.
It can be no coincidence that simultaneously, a second trend has popped up, also related to the apparently immeasurable challenges of motherhood. Some other incredibly puerile women are finding relief from the apparent burden of their mothers’ loads by – wait for it – throwing ice into a bathtub. I kid you not. As this is a trend, it goes without saying that these women performatively undertake this bizarre activity whilst filming themselves, for shares and likes again, obviously.
If these women genuinely feel this way about their choice to become mothers, then society has failed them immeasurably. Their actions speak of adults who have been arrested in a kind of adolescence, demanding more “me time”, and resenting being forced to expel their energy on their own children. What a tragedy. Because motherhood is a gift. The hardships that accompany it are more than compensated for by the joy and abundance that children bring to our lives. Yes, there are struggles. There is boredom, frustration, and innumerable other emotions at play as a parent. (A quick digression. I have a photograph that has become a bit of a classic in our house, and I feel it paints a picture. After a long day traipsing round Paris with our then 7 and 8-year-old, who had each spent much of the day whinging and failing to show the awe we had anticipated from them at the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower, we returned to our rented apartment, and, once the children were in bed, cracked the wine and ciggies. I snapped the legendary photograph at the perfect moment, as my husband had just crammed no less than four cigarettes between his lips, and set earnestly about lighting them with matches. It still makes us chuckle to this day.) But overwhelmingly, being a parent has brought more joy than anything else in my life, and watching my daughter and step-daughter grow and thrive fills me with happiness, and no small amount of pride.
Ultimately, the “Mothersphere v. Manosphere” charade is a concocted battlefield, yet another way to pit one group against another. Women are being encouraged to view their husbands and their children with resentment. And if, as the evidence appears to suggest, “They” are trying to reduce population, then nudging women to reject the idea of reproducing would be a useful side hustle, to capture those that have escaped infertility from the injections they have subjected themselves to. It has been easy to switch off natural instincts in so many ways; believing that we must be injected to remain healthy, that we must train our children to cry themselves to sleep, that we should take supplements instead of sourcing real nutrition via food. It is no leap to believe that switching off women’s maternal instinct is achievable, not least by “nudging” attitudes. Perhaps characters like Paige Connell are inventions of the ruling classes, playing a role, elevated and promoted to bring about this kind of attitude change in the relevant cohort. Unsurprisingly, there have been numerous mainstream articles promoting the idea that many women regret their choice to become mothers. These brutal headlines have all been published:
My daughter is now 19, and I have never once regretted or resented her existence. But nor did I ever feel the desire to throw sliced cheese at her little baby head, or to take to any kind of public forum to tell the world how hard it was to be her mother. Hopefully, these decisions have stood her in good stead, and she will carry them forward when she becomes a mother herself, one day. I think we can all be certain of one thing – no good can come from enabling, indeed encouraging, women to embrace their own self-centredness over their feelings about motherhood. Babies grow up fast, and motherhood is a gift to be savoured, not a burden to be endured.
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