Comments on: uptown girl

By: petite

petite — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:35:28 +0000

Thank you Geronimo, I am not enjoying the job much today.

I love my life right now. I love my neighbourhood, my lovingly painted flat, my writing studio, my friends, and I wouldn’t swap any of it for all the money in the world and an hôtel particulier in the marais.

So, I’ll take my life, Anna can keep hers, we can agree to differ on what factors shape children the most.

And of course you can all watch this space to see whether Tadpole’s life really does become a “tragedy of lost opportunity”.

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:07:35 +0000

Anna, are you going to take up petite’s challenge and tell her where you live and why it is so superior?
Go on, you know you want to!

By: The B

The B — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 17:37:44 +0000

And what’s wrong with Tower Hamlets, anyway? I live in Hackney, which is apparently even worse, and in a part of it, Dalston, which is probably viewed as being one of the worst bits of Hackney, and it’s fabulous. What you’re doing when you dismiss an area is judging not the place but the people in it – and why should they be condemned? Let’s all mix it up a bit, and live in unexpected places.

By: Géronimo

Géronimo — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 17:07:14 +0000

Huzzas for Petite!
I first read about this blog, some months ago, from Maître Eolas’s webpage… and I have to confess that when I read Petite’s first posts about “l’affaire Petite Anglaise”, I refrained myself from commenting, feeling it hard to find anything to say that could make sense: Corporate Business Land being such a foreign country to me!

So I went here, curious about a Cause Célèbre…. and felt in the habit of coming back, mainly for Tadpole stories, yet as well for all these little sketches of Comédie Humaine Petite uses to delight her readers with.

Sometimes the human comedy bits shift from the blog to the comments. I must say I watched with great wonder Petite answering patiently and kindly to some poster’s in equal parts tactless, tasteless and pointless comment; receiving back, instead of apologies, even more offensive and misguided comments, and, not losing her temper, continuing answering courteously to this motley bunch of visitors her blog happens to attract… as the perfect maîtresse de maison it’s obvious she is!
Thanks, Petite, for the blogging manners lesson!

By: Alice

Alice — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 14:13:54 +0000

Just as a brief aside, I personally am stunned by this person’s quickness to judge someone else’s life simply from what she reads here — we all know that these are, as another reader has said and as Petite has herself stated, just “slices of her life.” I personally consider it a mantra to never judge others unless I have walked in their shoes… We all make choices, decisions, sometimes tough ones — life is fraught with so many challenges, on a personal or professional level; why must we get caught up in judging others in such a harsh way? And conveying such a sense of entitlement? Why can’t we respect each other’s differences and interests? I truly believe that attitudes like these lead to deeper-ingrained stereotypes, stereotypes that entrench our world in disaccord and intolerance.

Why can’t we agree to disagree? It is all so subjective when it comes down to it, choices of lifestyle, how to raise children, etc. I too believe that children can grow up very well-adjusted and well-educated in many different kinds of environments; I mean, it happens all around the world every day! Some of us have a good education and then continue to struggle to define ourselves and don’t decide to settle for one particular job just because it pays well, but also because we’re still trying to find our place in this world. Does that make us terrible, or lesser people? This is such a broad, philosophical question really… Obviously having children is a choice and a sacrifice, and you have to think about how you’re going to raise them, but I too agree that how they are raised has a greater influence on them than where. Some of our most gifted and most influential world figures may have come from lowly backgrounds and have gone on to do great things.

I don’t know, this kind of judgment about someone just makes me sad. And again, I’m sorry to stir up the pot, but I just wanted to share my two cents.