Parenting

Did the makers of When I Grow Up have no qualms turning a small boy into a hate figure?

4 May 2019 9:00 am

Channel 4’s When I Grow Up had an important lesson for middle-class white males everywhere: you’re never too young to…

Stop going through the motions – committees are a waste of time

27 April 2019 9:00 am

God save us from committees. They’re an increasingly outdated way of getting things done. But there’s a certain sort of…

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Dear Mary: How can I get my annoying children to answer my texts?

16 February 2019 9:00 am

Q. I have learned through a third party that a friend, who is feeling particularly insecure these days, has not been…

Children are everywhere – and they’re spoiling everything

28 July 2018 9:00 am

There was a time when middle-class liberals used to complain that the English were a nation of child haters. They…

Dear Mary

29 July 2017 9:00 am

Q. My children are very lucky in that we have bought them all flats. However, they are now renting out…

Why I’d like to be a more dangerous dad

26 March 2016 9:00 am

According to figures obtained by BBC Breakfast last week, more than 500 people were arrested in England and Wales in…

Driving test advice from 80 years ago

6 June 2015 9:00 am

First test The driving test celebrated its 80th anniversary. The first person to take the test, R.E.L. Beene of Kensington,…

American teenagers in the 1940s: part of the Silent Generation — so called for conforming to the norm and focusing on careers rather than activism

Older, more angsty...and maybe wiser: the new face of growing up

2 May 2015 9:00 am

We live in an age of generational turmoil. Baby-boom parents are accused of clinging on to jobs and houses which…

The bits of Magna Carta that David Cameron won’t want taught in schools

21 June 2014 8:00 am

The not-so-great charter David Cameron wants every child to be taught about Magna Carta. Some bits he might want to…

The publicist who's doing her best to keep me off TV

17 May 2014 9:00 am

I went to a meeting at Penguin earlier this week to discuss ‘publicity opportunities’ for my forthcoming book. Chance would…

Why working class grandparents are better than middle class ones

22 March 2014 9:00 am

When I told a friend that my nine-year-old son was staying with his grandparents for the whole week of the…

Why Boris is wrong to say that the children of jihadis should be taken into care

8 March 2014 9:00 am

Do your children have a bleak and nihilistic view of the world? It’s hard to tell, really, when they spend…