If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
It's no surprise that children love the idea of keeping a rabbit as a pet - they are exceptionally cute and fluffy, and particularly at this time of year. But before you decide to take a trip to the pet shop, please stop and think for a moment whether you are ready to take on the responsibility of looking after quite a complex little creature.
The connotations attached to the title of single parent were an albatross around my neck, how could I fight the world I had always known and make for a new one? Why do the cultural norms outweigh the religious, and which does one tackle first?
They need to understand that the legal processes can turn initially reasonable demands into a whole new set of game playing on an expensive scale, and as for who wins and who loses, I recommend a coin is taken into the court room and tossed, as that is about as accurate a way of guessing outcomes as any.
In the four years since starting Spabreaks.com , I have donned two hats: one as an entrepreneur, and the other as a mum. As my little boy (who is not...
"What was the most memorable experience from your childhood?" is a question that is often asked of us and I think that no matter what the answer is it is usually something which we did for the first time which pushed us into the unknown in some way and gave us our first adrenaline rush.
In recent weeks, the debate around reducing childcare costs and improving quality has been confused. This has been most evident in the More Great Childcare proposals to increase adult:child ratios in nurseries and to change them in childminding settings. This is the clearest indication yet that for the Coalition government, cost is the biggest driver for change, not quality.
When my daughter was four months old I decided it would be the thing to sell up and shift our new and amorphous life together two-hundred miles south....
The UK government is pushing ahead full steam with Clause 1 of the Children and Families Bill. If implemented it could result in some children being placed with potential adopters despite there having been no court proceedings, no court decision that the child should be permanently removed from their parents and no legal advice given to the parents.
If more children got to see their parents exercising the child obesity rate might reduce. Most people could say they were influenced by their parents growing up, unfortunately for me my parents were not very active, which was possibly why I was always slightly overweight.
Everyone wants the best for their children. But when you can't trust what is written on food labels, it's impossible to feel sure you are making positive choices for your family. As a working Mum, I know how hard it is to do a long day in the office and then come home to try and figure out what I'm going to cook for supper.
Scotland wants to be the best small country in the world for children to grow up in. It's a great aspiration to set but as new figures show an increase in the number of children on child protection registers, with more than half under the age of five - is Scotland getting any closer to giving its children the very best start in life?
Over the past nine months of appointments, I hadn't seen the same midwife once. Pushed into the position of pregnancy slut - hopes for an actual relationship scuppered early on. It was never anything more than a one 'meet' stand.
The world of technical innovation has exploded over the past five years and is still progressing at an amazing rate, with mostly younger people being at the forefront of this revolution. This explosion is going to become even more prevalent this year with one the last platforms to be opened up with the introduction of the Ouya games console.
My instinct tells me that if I want a baby it will come naturally or if it doesn't maybe it is not meant to be. Others have a different vibe about the whole thing and are comfortable with fertility treatment, IVF or other procedures. But for me and for many of my friends the cost was getting too high. It made me sick, frustrated, anxious and most of all I lost me.
How did I walk out of my job as lecturer in Japanese to bring up one, then two, then three children, I think? How did I put up with the dirty nappies, the night feeds, the parking two children in the play-pen so as to get to the toilet - the blizzard years?
I overheard one mum being told the great news by her daughter's class teacher that little Chloe had done really well on her maths test with 19 out of 20. The mum immediately shot back with, "What did she get wrong? And what about her English?" Pushy Mums. Don't you just love 'em? I bet the teachers do....
