'Me time'

Nothing at all wrong with a four year old sucking a dummy. And certainly nothing wrong with he/she having to wear a nighttime nappy!

I think the woman has the wrong idea about state schools. She says, "I'm a paying customer and can therefore call the shots." Most parents these days realise that we are all paying customers and are entitled to expect a good level of service from schools.

My GS2 (summer born) had to start school at four or lose his place at the chosen school. The school were very understanding of the fact that he got tired and didn't mind at all if he couldn't quite manage to complete the whole week. And he had a whole term of mornings only.

I think we might be worrying about this kid too much. She's most likely right as rain, whilst getting in tune with what life is going to be like in to-day's world!

more than laziness supernan - much more worrying emotions at play here

The most worrying part of this article is the fact of a 4 year old child needing to suck a dummy and wear nappies at night! Smacks of laziness on the mother's part.

Stansgran - and you have just reminded me why I need to stop!

KatyK you've just given me four good reasons why I will never need to watch daytime tv

Personally I would take what this woman says with a pinch of salt. She is another professional 'winder up' if that's an expression. Similar to Samantha Brick, Katie Hopkins and Liz Jones, being paid for being controversial I have seen her on daytime TV in various debates on all manner of subjects.

Well put, Iam.

Classic Daily Wail - female journalist writes overly personal column, in which she exploits her own children's privacy to make money.

If this was an article in the same paper, about a single mother, who is combine shift work as a carer/cleaner with caring for her 4 children, I feel sure it would be much more openly judgemental. As it is, it's purpose is to confirm the Mail's belief system, that women can't combine work and motherhood.

Thanks, Ana

Reckon that's what the article set out to do.

I'm so sorry, when - yes I mistakenly attributed the comment about disgust to you, not thatbags.

I think a lot of us are perceiving the article and/or photos differently from each other, and misunderstandings are happening.

Perhaps I was wrong to perceive such things in some of the comments, but I did. We all know how easy it is to misinterpret the printed word.

mild, not mile

It was one of my posts that mentioned disgustingness, when. Rightly or wrongly, I thought I perceived disgust at a four year old (still! shock, horror!) sucking a dummy (one has to admit, there is such a thing as dummy-disgust), and I also perceived disapproval (which could be called a mile kind of disgust) about the night time nappies. It annoyed me.

Ana did you mean someone else? I haven't said anything relating to disgust about a child with a dummy?

The mother is pretty "impressive" too in her way. In the way when has highlighted.

I meant that the DM was going for sympathy for the child from its readers. Perhaps rather at odds with the writer's aim, but there you go...

I'm not impressed with the cynical choice of photographs either.

Well... Actually, I am. I impressed with the boldness of the overt cynicism of the DM in publishing such articles so as to get more sales. One can be impressed by pure brashness, can't one?

OK sympathy. Scratch out disgustingness. But why sympathy? Sympathy for being a four year old doing things typical of four year olds like thumb- or dummy-sucking and going to kindergarten (because that's what it is even if it's called school) and sometimes weeing in one's sleep?

It's the mother who's fishing, in a confused way, for sympathy. The child is fine.

My son wet the bed until he was well into his teens. He eventually grew out of it, but I don't think I would ever have mentioned it in a national newspaper.

Surely leaving the child in a good nursery for a year would have given the mother some free time and got the child better prepared for school. I remember school came as a terrible shock to me (no preschools in those days) and I became one of the quiet and withdrawn children, barely able to function. Although I eventually got used to it there are still ways in which I feel the effects over 60 years later.

I'm not at all 'disgusted' by the idea of a child of 4 sucking a dummy, when! I'm just not impressed by the cynical choice of photos for the DM article. The photo itself is obviously supposed to invoke sympathy, not disgust - no one on here has expressed such a view, have they?

Well said, when. But why is anyone ever surprised by such rubbish in the DM?

GN not at it's best when being judgemental.

I've been trying to remember where I've seen Shona Sibary. She's the woman that gets wheeled out on daytime tv to give opposing views on Katie Hopkins' barmy pronouncements, the latest of which was that it's ok to miss your child's birthday if you're busy working. Given Ms Sibary's current assertion that she's happy to rush her child into school for some 'me' time, I wonder why she was recently so adamant that her sensitive little chicks need her to be there for them so they can celebrate their special days throughout the year, and why did she accuse Ms Hopkins of making her children feel unimportant because she put work first?

Strikes me that Shona Sibary is just another attention-seeking media bod who will say anything to get herself back on TV for a fat fee, to explain herself. What's the betting she'll be on This Morning any day soon? Waste of space!

Hear! Hear!