In response to Kathy Gyngell: Feminist blandishments cannot erase the guilt felt by mothers separated from their children, Groan wrote:
It is indeed a measure of something that there still is the need to repeat this mantra about mothers and children. Of equal vintage and from the same people the reverse is advocated: men should indeed feel guilty and spend much more time bonding with their children! “But not liking it doesn’t mean that there isn’t something to feel guilty about”. Here we have a core modern view that feeling “uncomfortable” is something to be prevented or at least minimised. Rather than a spur to address an issue or circumstance, it is a cue to focus on the feeling and seek to spirit these away, frequently ignoring factual circumstances. And just as feelings such as guilt are to be spirited away so too is the research, data, or application of “common sense” which still drive such things as adoption and advocacy for disabled people.
