University open days are part of the academic calendar. Every university worth its salt throws its doors open at this time of year, giving teenagers the chance to tour the campus, meet students and teaching staff and ‘find out what it’s really like to live and study there.’ They admittedly leave out the non-stop drinking, rowdy all-night parties and wall-to-wall daytime TV. When I applied to university countless years ago ...keep reading
There’s a great interview in this week’s Grazia with Yvette Cooper, who as well as being the shadow home secretary is married to shadow chancellor Ed Balls and has three children between the ages of eight and thirteen. The best thing of all about the piece (written by Gaby Hinsliff) is that it gives a vivid glimpse of life in a hectic household, where two high-flying politicians are juggling about ...keep reading
“Enough about saintly working mothers. What about me? I’m a working dad.” That’s the headline emblazoned across the front page of Times 2 today, trailing a piece by Hugo Rifkind that sticks up for working fathers. His gist is that society isn’t treating fathers equally. “… when she gets up many hours before going to work to deal with our children’s poos and pees and frankly unreasonable moonlit demands for ...keep reading
The news that Conservative MP Louise Mensch is stepping down from her parliamentary seat will reignite the “can women have it all?” debate. I’ve long thought that the answer is probably “no,” and I reckon that Mensch, the mother of three young children, has decided the same. A hugely successful chick-lit author before winning the Corby and East Northamptonshire seat for the Tories in 2010, Mensch has had to juggle ...keep reading
I’m not David Cameron’s number one fan but I do feel a bit sorry for him and his wife Samantha right now. The papers are full of the day the couple left their eight year old daughter Nancy behind at a Buckinghamshire pub. Speaking of which, take a look at the brilliant Matt Pritchett’s cartoon in today’s Daily Telegraph. Actually loads of parents have made similar mistakes – me for ...keep reading
What a brilliant idea. As parents scratch their heads in puzzlement about their teenagers, two 17 year old girls have written a new guide to help them navigate their way through the tricky teenage years. Louise Bedwell and Megan Lovegrove (above), who are both sixth formers at Nonsuch High School for Girls in Cheam, spent six months researching their book. It’s called Teenagers Explained: A Manual for Parents by Teenagers ...keep reading
What on earth has happened to me? I’ve trekked across the Masai Mara to discover who murdered a beautiful young woman in the prime of her life, stood on the doorsteps of drugs barons and murderers and covered court cases that gave me nightmares. Yet, here I am having sleepless nights over the slightest things. The bottom line is that I need to give myself a firm talking to – ...keep reading
“Have I ever been an embarrassing parent?” I asked my son the other day. “Quite often,” he muttered with feeling. He then proceeded to list everything I’d done to show him up, from the day I fell off a fairground roundabout (stone-cold sober, I hasten to add) to all the times I’d insisted on staying to watch him ride his bike at the skate park. I pretended I wasn’t with ...keep reading
Mornings have never been my strong point. In the days when I took my daughter to the bus stop soon after 7am I used to rush out looking like I’d been pulled through a hedge backwards, without a scrap of make-up and my hair unbrushed. I’d then dash into Sainsbury’s to buy the papers and hope I didn’t scare the cheery man on the till or, horror of horrors, bump ...keep reading