Blog List

I have a two-year-old son who won’t go to sleep unless the hoover is humming beside him and he’s clutching a big black stone which he unearthed in our back garden. You become so used to your children’s foibles and eccentricities that it’s only when you say them out loud you wonder whether they’re actually a few sandwiches short of a picnic. This was brought home to me last week when I...

When I found out that I was expecting a child almost seven years ago, I turned to the one person I believed knew absolutely everything about child-rearing: my mum. The woman was a superhero in my eyes. Rearing three children single-handedly after my dad passed away wasn’t an easy job, but my God, she made it look that way. Holding down a full-time job, tending to her children’s day-to-day...

Us mothers are like magnets to guilt. It is so all-consuming that when we do experience a rare hour or two guilt-free, we feel guilty for not feeling guilty. It can’t be good for our health, can it? There is never any real let up and the list of why we feel bad, usually house and parenting related, is never ending: the house is a mess, we haven’t spent enough time with the kids, we gave them...

I still remember Ella’s first public meltdown; I have never felt so ill-equipped to deal with something in my entire life. Oh, I had heard about the terrible twos, I had been primed about toddler tantrums and I’d been given the 411 on irrational outbursts, but nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for the horror I felt at the time. Standing in the cereal aisle of my local supermarket and...

Being forgetful is definitely a mother’s prerogative. With so many things to remember, stuff to carry and kids to get out of the house, it is pretty easy for silly things, like forgetting to turn off the light in the morning, to simply slip out of your mind. However, problems arise when you start forgetting important things like not bringing your keys to work, going to get milk and picking up...

A woman named Catherine Cooper sparked outrage recently when she appeared on This Morning and admitted that she had, at certain times in her life, found herself bored by her children. Cue mass hysteria from one corner of the internet who were of the opinion that a mum ‘fessing up to being less than enthralled by a game of Peek-a-Boo is akin to child neglect. Let’s all take a moment here...

I have a photo of my children on my desk in work. Joshua is struggling to get out of his tricycle and Grace is crouched beside him laughing uproariously at his discomfort. I never thought I‘d be the type of woman who kept a photo of her children perched beside her computer screen, but I soon realised it was a done thing in my particular office. I definitely didn’t want to be the only mum that...

Mums come in all shapes and sizes with different ways of parenting their kids. There are those who let their kids roam free in nature, those who have their children involved in every after school activity imaginable, those who let their little one try anything and then there’s me - the overprotective mum. If I could, I would totally wrap my little one in bubble wrap but I have yet to find one...

Maia Dunphy, TV presenter and the wife of comedian Johnny Vegas, recently voiced her frustration at the probing questions women are asked when they tie the knot, reach a certain age or appear to be in a settled, long-term relationship. “So when are you two going to have kids?” Even typing those words makes me cringe. It gives me flashbacks to a time when I felt I spent every social occasion...

I’ve spent a long time envisioning girlie days I’d have with my daughter once she hit her teens. Boy-free days where we’d shop, have lunch and catch up with each other. I say ‘catch up’ because I hear teens don’t spend much time at home and as my job necessitates a lot of travel, I presumed the days in question would need to be arranged via PA or something. But what do I know? I’ve...