Sarah has pointed me in the direction of a row that has erupted between baby “guru” Gina Ford and on line mothers’ forum Mumsnet. The gist of the argument is that Ms Ford, writer of the best selling but highly controversial book “The Contented Little Baby” has taken umbrage about some of the remarks made about her on that site. So incensed is she that she wants to have the whole site shut down despite it being used by thousands of mothers every week for advice and general discussion. Although Sarah doesn’t use Mumsnet she is a member of Bad Mother’s Club – a similar site, where, like Mumsnet members have been asked not to criticise Ms Ford online.

According to The Register the comments that were made suggested that she “has unpleasant and unhygienic personal habits", that she was “cruel, uncaring, and justifiably reviled" and another rather jokingly suggested that she “straps babies to rockets and fires them into south Lebanon”. Ms Ford has requested that the website be shut down despite the site displaying a disclaimer regarding not accepting liability for the content of the forums and allowing for offending posts to be removed, which they were as soon as they were brought to the attention of the web site operators. This would appear to comply with the relevant "notice and takedown" rules set out in the judgment in Godfrey v. Demon – a similar case brought a few years ago.

Curiously Ms Ford who runs a similar forum on her own website apparently has a similar disclaimer displayed. I understand that the forums there are for members who are willing to pay the £40 a year subscription. I of course wasn’t willing to pay this fee and am therefore unable to check it out for myself.

The general gist of the controversy is the parenting advice given by Ms Ford who while she has looked after lots of babies for celebrities and the wealthy has never had a child of her own. This would appear to be quite a regimented regime which divides the day up into 5 minute intervals and gives an hour-by-hour, week-by-week guide on how to get a new baby into a routine designed to get it to sleep through the night as soon as possible. Apparently this involves only feeding at certain times, leaving the child to cry for hours if necessary, waking the baby if it’s not up by a certain time and putting it in a darkened room if it’s meant to be asleep. The book is also seen to have an anti-breastfeeding bias which has upset many as well.

A spokesman for Mumsnet has said that asking mums not to discuss the book is akin to asking a football discussion not to mention Manchester United. They have also said that her attempt to shut down an entire website because of a few comments is like taking the BBC off air because someone complains about one program. It certainly seems to be against the idea of free speech and is even more confusing when you consider that there are some quite defamatory statements on another site – Amazon.co.uk These are a few I saw earlier (printed here as quotes and not my views at all)

“After the first few weeks he'll settle into a routine anyway, and it won't be one imposed on him by some nazi who's never had a child of her own”

“I tourtured myself and my baby on that regimented, nazi routine!”

Now Ms Ford has said that being described as a terrorist upset her when she read it on Mumsnet so why hasn’t she tried to shut down Amazon for allowing someone to call her a Nazi? Similarly she complained about Mumsnet claiming she was “cruel, uncaring, and justifiably reviled" but again from Amazon

“Anyone who condones leaving your baby cry and scream for 3-4 hours is in my opinion as a parent of three children a sadist”

So why the double standards – hmm lets see what do Amazon sell?

You can read statements from both sides here