Blog List

The Liberal Democrats have proposed giving parents more time off after having a baby. Drafted by the Minister of Equality, this will allow parents to claim up to 15 months’ leave, as well as the right to give employers very little notice beforehand. From April 2015, the Children and Families Bill will give parents the right to ‘mix and match’ childcare arrangements during the first year of...

Worryingly almost half of British kids between the ages of 10 and 14 have seen their parents drunk. Children copy their parents’ behaviours and Elaine Hindal of Drinkaware calls on mums and dads to “understand their significant influence as role models and feel confident to set a good example.” Last year over 3,000 Britons, some as young as 12, had to seek help for a drinking problem and...

Many of us grew up believing that good behaviour and success in school or sports were sure-fire ways to win our parents’ favour. Apparently we were wrong. US researchers have found that mothers actually choose their favourites based on similarities between them and the child. Instead of choosing the offspring with financial, career or academic success, the majority of mothers questioned chose...

75% of mothers who are married or cohabiting are now working – the highest proportion since records began. Official figures from the Office for National Statistics highlight the effect of current financial pressures on families. Experts have blamed government policies, which they say make it harder for this generation of parents to raise their children. Changes to child benefit, increases in VAT...

Do you feel you’re excluding the couples in your life who don’t have children? And worse, do you regularly make their reproductive decision a topic of conversation? While there has been an increase in the number of babies born in recent times, there are also a significant number of couples who either can’t have children or have made the decision not to have them. These couples have reported...

Is the traditional bedtime story dying out? A new study has revealed that one third of parents never read their children a story at night and only 64% of those with children under seven read to them at all. Despite 91% of parents saying they were regularly read stories as a child, 13% of parents blamed a lack of time for not reading to their children, while 9% claimed they were 'too...

One of the characters in my next book says ‘Over time my open mind had become a narrow passageway through which I forced the occasional independent thought.’ As I wrote that, I started thinking how true that is. When I was nineteen, I made a loose arrangement to meet a bunch of mates in Turkey. Not Bournemouth, not Tunbridge Wells, but Turkey. We announced our arrival in Istanbul by leaving a...

When Monkey was born I was determined that he would not be afraid of water …… I have been afraid of water for as long as I can remember, not in all forms I must add. I can actually drink a glass of water and have a bath, but I have issues!! Before I was 26 I couldn’t swim, having a shower was a total trauma if the shower head was fixed, froze halfway across some stepping-stones which crossed...

It's not unusual for parents today to decide that one child is enough, although it seems to be difficult to get everyone else to understand that family can be a mummy, daddy and just one child. Why can't everyone else just accept that? There’s never enough time in my day to get everything done. Actually there’s never enough time in the week, month or year either. And with just one...

This is my first ever Blog so please bear with me, not because this is my first ever blog, but because while writing this I also pretending to be a patient at my 2 year old son’s doctors surgery, otherwise known as my lounge. So here I sit with my laptop open, a plastic thermometer rather roughly shoved in my mouth (my son wins no prizes for his bedside manner!), a plastic bandage on my finger...