Parenting

Middle-class parents are creating a new breed of brat

26 April 2025 9:00 am

I recently reconnected with an old friend; I went to his house and met his children for the first time.…

Heaven is a Trad Dad

1 February 2025 9:00 am

M y husband earns more than me. A lot more. I am, of course, extremely fortunate to be in such…

The child-free influencers waging war on motherhood

18 January 2025 9:00 am

At around five weeks into my pregnancy my phone found out about it, and from that point on I was…

Don’t ambush parents with activism

14 December 2024 9:00 am

As we sat down at the Royal Opera House to watch one of the Royal Ballet’s soloists perform Letter to Tchaikovsky,…

Childcare is mothercare

6 July 2024 9:00 am

When I was a small child, my mother left me in the charge of an elderly neighbour so that she…

Stella Creasy is wrong about the ‘motherhood penalty’

17 December 2023 8:39 pm

If you find yourself frazzled by the Christmas rush, spare a thought for Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, who is…

Dear Mary

9 September 2023 9:00 am

The dangerous cult of ‘toxic parents’

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Complaining about ‘toxic parents’ has been a viral hit on TikTok with videos on the topic racking up several billion…

Parents must resist Stonewall’s gospel

16 July 2022 9:00 am

I think by now it’s becoming horribly apparent to parents of every political persuasion that we can’t sit out the…

My three straight weeks of saintliness

12 March 2022 9:00 am

I’m currently standing at the top of Brownie Point Mountain, having spent the past two weeks looking after our three…

Baby bust

5 June 2021 9:00 am

Chinese women can’t afford a large family

Parent trap

8 May 2021 9:00 am

Welcome to the cripplingly expensive world of childcare, Boris

As time goes by

1 May 2021 9:00 am

There were many moments in Early Morning Riser that made me laugh out loud in recognition. An episode where the…

Following the herd

6 March 2021 9:00 am

The ethics of Covid jabs for children

The conservative appeal of drug gangs

6 March 2021 9:00 am

According to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, the easing of lock-down will be accompanied by a rise in crime…

Father figures of fun

20 February 2021 9:00 am

The politics and posturing of ‘middle-class dads’

A shed of one’s own

28 November 2020 9:00 am

I’ve moved out of my home. No, Caroline and I haven’t broken up. It’s just that we’re having the house…

children

Children of the revolution

3 June 2020 4:07 am

Some steal their luxury leisure goods, but others take their leisure by the luxury of right, and all of it…

Lullabies and lockdown

9 May 2020 9:00 am

I laughed when my Spanish midwife mentioned in passing that in Latin American countries they have a custom for new…

The world of make-believe is stranger than we realise

28 March 2020 9:00 am

Last summer, in the bc era, I took my then three-year-old to a new group play session: ‘Lottie’s Magic Box.’…

Open book

7 March 2020 9:00 am

If you want children to love reading, don’t tell them what to read

In defence of pocket money

11 January 2020 9:00 am

Our grandchildren are penniless. They have pretty much everything their hearts desire and they have parents with wallets full of…

It’s possible to talk to children about politics without leading them in one direction

7 December 2019 9:00 am

My six-year-old son announced, from the back of the car, that he was backing Boris Johnson. My wife, who’s voting…

Why do we keep pretending that children are wiser than adults?

12 October 2019 9:00 am

We’ve begun to behave as if young people are special; more virtuous and wiser than adults. It’s wrong and it’s…

At last, the TV-hogging space invaders have returned to university

5 October 2019 9:00 am

‘Hands up which other university parents are bloody glad to have got rid of their lumpen, food-gobbling, space-invading kids…’ When…