As the first weddings take place, the partner of murdered journalist Lyra McKee and others describe the fight for their rights
Sara Canning, nurse and partner of journalist Lyra McKee, Derry
Continue reading...Category Archives: Family
The family in 2050: artificial wombs, robot carers and the rise of single fathers by choice
Technology and economics could radically change our understanding of the family in years to come – and deepen inherited privilege
In 2004, when the year 2020 sounded futuristic, the Guardian predicted it would by now be “very hard” to talk about a “typical family”. Domestic units would be formed in myriad ways and “children living with both their biological parents in the same household” would be in the minority.
This hasn’t quite panned out. In the UK today, 84% of babies are born to parents who are married, in a civil partnership or co-habiting, although the statistics don’t reveal all the real-life complexities (many of the parents will be starting second families, for instance). In 2019, 61% of families with dependent children have married or civil-partnered parents (the children may not be biologically related to both). In the US, fewer than half of children are living with two biological parents who are in their first marriage.
Continue reading...‘I felt compelled to hug strangers’: a day at the gathering of my ancestral clan
When Megan Nolan received her invitation, she wasn’t convinced of the importance of a shared name. Could 20 Nolans change her mind?
In June this year I received an email inviting me to Carlow, Ireland, to receive an award from the Nolan clan. The award was in recognition of my writing career, a little gesture of thanks for promoting the Nolan name in the world. I was dimly aware of Irish clans, largely from gift shops near tourism hotspots, where you can sometimes buy a horribly expensive sweater or scarf emblazoned with the family crest of your choice. I had no idea that they were a real-life concern.
I wasn’t living anywhere in particular. I had recently left my house in London because I couldn’t easily afford it and had tired of sharing with other people. So I answered my invitation from the clan immediately, accepting a little out of curiosity and a lot because in my transient state I would take any excuse to make my way back to Ireland, where I could loaf in my parents’ homes and not think much about money for a week.
Continue reading...Our first Christmas as empty nesters
The kids have left home, and we’re not really coping, so this seems like the perfect chance to lure them back
My husband and I don’t think we have the condition until, one day last month, hundreds of miles from home, we find ourselves outside our younger son’s university accommodation at 11.30 on a Sunday morning. I am clutching supplies in a little brown paper bag. Our son knows we’re in town, but isn’t expecting this rude awakening. It’s a surprise.
“Do you think we should have called first?” I say as we approach the entrance, the inappropriateness of what we’re doing dawning on me only now.
Continue reading...‘It gets competitive at jigsaw time’: Christmas with my ex-boyfriends
I’ve been bringing exes home for a family Christmas for years. Now we have to rent a castle to fit them all in
This Christmas you’ll find me sitting around a crackling fire with my family: my mum whomping down her third mince pie, my sister searching for bubbly, and my stepfather burying his nose in the sports pages. One of my ex-boyfriends will be making us die with laughter while another ex polishes off the cava, and a completely different ex tries to pull focus from the first ex, who is on all fours pretending to give birth to a penguin. My actual boyfriend will either be in hysterics or dreading his turn at charades. Christmas is complicated.
People start moaning about how stressful Christmas is around the time Pret release their new festive sandwich. Single gay friends, especially, worry about travelling to towns they left as soon as they could, populated by people they hid from on Facebook and hoped never to see again. I know this feeling, because for years it’s what I did, too. Back in the early noughties, the thought of going home to Jersey was so gloomy that I was forced to take action. I was single, but had stayed pretty good friends with an ex who had grown up in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses, so I asked him to come home with me. He was thrilled to have an invite, and that year proved that just because turkey is dry it doesn’t mean the holiday has to be. Having an ally took the edge off, and the lively addition of a guest with ADHD and a gift for candid storytelling meant we all had the most fun we’d had in years.
Continue reading...‘Parenting here means checking the ingredients of teargas’: my return to Hong Kong
Emma-Lee Moss, who makes music as Emmy the Great, on life, new motherhood and her divided birthplace
It feels as if the entire world’s press is there, standing on the pavement outside the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. They’re in Hong Kong to cover the protests, but tonight, the Friday before National Day, they’re off duty. From the bottom of the hill, the bars of Lan Kwai Fong thrum reliably. There is an uneasy peace in the air, as though we all know that, three days from now, the long-running citywide demonstrations will reach a violent new apex.
I’ve walked this route hundreds of times, and been a parade of different selves. I’ve been a teenager trying to score 7-11 beer on the spot where Chungking Express was filmed. I’ve been a visiting writer ordering drinks at the FCC bar. But now I am the mother and primary carer of a nine-month-old, and my time out has been negotiated. Quite frankly, I am dazzled by the world after 7pm. As I shuffle past the media crowd, I feel a pull, a yearning. In another life, I’d be there with them. When I moved back to Hong Kong in 2018, it was in search of stories about the strange, convoluted city I was born in.
Continue reading...Experience: I’m nine years old and won an adult 10km race by mistake
A 40-year-old woman came in second, about a minute later. She shook my hand and congratulated me
One recent Sunday morning, my mum and grandma drove me to a 5km race not far from where we live in St Cloud, Minnesota, in the US. There was a fierce thunderstorm, and when we got there I had to wait for it to pass beneath an overhang with the other runners. I started to feel a little nervous, because some of the people there looked really fast. They had proper running leggings and long, skinny legs. They were all different ages. I wasn’t wearing running clothes; just a normal T-shirt and shorts.
I’m nine years old now, but have been running competitively since I was six. I love it, because it makes me feel good. I have a lot of energy to use up and I can do it by just moving my legs. Sometimes I run for the sake of it, other times I run to win. That morning, I wanted to win.
Continue reading...French couple can keep tilde in son’s name after court battle
The row over Fañch or Fanch was settled after the parents’ two-year tussle with officials
A two-year French legal battle over an orthographic squiggle has ended in victory for a couple granted the right to write their infant son’s Breton first name as Fañch instead of Fanch.
The country’s highest court for criminal and civil cases threw out an appeal bid by the authorities of Rennes, the capital of the north-western Brittany region, against an earlier ruling in favour of the family of Fañch Bernard.
Continue reading...What did Hillary Clinton mean it was ‘gutsy’ to stay with Bill? It’s complicated | Jean Hannah Edelstein
How a marriage should be conducted can only be known by the key participants – and they might not even be in agreement
Hillary Clinton has a deep well to draw from when asked about the challenges she’s faced. But her admission yesterday that staying in her marriage was the “gutsiest” thing that she’s done in her personal life was remarkable. In part, remarkable because over the years she’s stayed pretty quiet when it comes to discussing being married to one of the world’s most exposed philanderers, only occasionally alluding to what must have been some very painful experiences. In part, remarkable because who doesn’t like a glimpse into what makes a well-known marriage tick?
As a central and defining arrangement that so many diverse cultures have in common, marriage is a unique (and dare I say it, strange) institution. A public-facing framework for, well, feelings. While religious bodies, governments, society and your gossipy neighbors next door have long done their best to set clear rules around what marriage is and means, how a marriage should be conducted can only really be known and understood by the key participants – and they might not even be in agreement.
Continue reading...French MPs approve IVF draft law for single women and lesbians
Bill is Emmanuel Macron’s biggest social reform since he was elected in 2017
France has taken a step towards allowing lesbian and single women to conceive children with medical help, setting the stage for a clash with the country’s religious conservatives.
To loud applause, France’s lower house of parliament approved a draft bioethics law in a move that has already sparked outrage from opponents, including some in President Emmanuel Macron’s own centrist party.
Continue reading...‘Put your phone away and be in the moment’: how to enjoy being a parent
A recent report found parents are happier when their children leave home – but why wait? Four experts share their tips on putting the fun back into family, at every age
Could we go down in history as the generation that forgot to enjoy our kids? It’s a shocking indictment, but the evidence is mounting: recent research found that parents become happier when their children have left home, while another study earlier this year found that working mothers with two children are 40% more stressed than anyone else. Meanwhile, Australian academics report that the pressures on parents mount after a second child, and that there are accompanying deteriorations in parents’ mental health.
And, as a two-year-old could probably tell you, stressed-out, unhappy parents raise stressed-out, unhappy offspring. The UK’s annual Good Childhood report, out last month, found there are more unhappy youngsters now than at any point in the past decade.
Continue reading...Guarantee the legal status of all EU migrants living in the UK | Letters
Signatories including Diane Abbott and Alf Dubs say the rights of EU nationals should be guaranteed. Plus Richard Griffiths on his Swedish wife’s difficulty in getting settled status and Emanuele Maindron on her family being torn apart. And another contributor says spare a thought for non-EU nationals too
In his first statement as prime minister, Boris Johnson gave “unequivocally our guarantee to the 3.2 million EU nationals now living and working among us … that, under this government, they will have the absolute certainty for the right to live and remain”. In less than a day, the prime minister’s spokesperson rushed to clarify that this did not mean new legislation would be proposed. Instead Johnson would maintain the EU Settlement Scheme.
As campaigners have pointed out, the current scheme implies that migrants who fail to apply will lose their legal status and residency rights. Figures suggest at least 2 million EU nationals have not applied for settled status yet. In order to be given settled status, migrants have to prove they have lived in the UK for at least five years.
Continue reading...‘I wish I’d told Dad how much I hated him’ – when children ditch their parents
What pushes someone to cut all ties with their mother or father?
As a child, Laura craved unconditional love. But instead of cuddles and family outings, her lasting memories are of bitter rows. “My mum never wanted children,” she says. “She told me that the only reason she didn’t get an abortion was she found out about the pregnancy too late.” Laura’s dad left when she was very young, which she thinks made her mother resentful. “She had to stay and be the responsible mum, which she hated. On one occasion my grandparents took me away and I remember thinking: this is what family should be like.”
The relationship dissolved completely when Laura was a teenager. “Mum’s first love was always men, and when I was 15 she moved to Africa for a boyfriend without telling me.” It’s something she found impossible to forgive, especially as there has never been an explanation or apology. “She has contacted me since but always asks for money. That’s why I made the decision to cut all ties with her.”
Continue reading...‘My mother-in-law called me Walter White’: how magic mushrooms rescued me from grief
After our daughter’s death I was overwhelmed by pain and anxiety. Microdosing home-grown mushrooms helped me cope
It was spring when my wife’s waters broke, three months early. We rushed to hospital, terrified. If our daughter arrived now, she might not survive. If she did, she would probably be plagued by lifelong health problems. Jo spent the next four days in hospital, while we prayed labour wouldn’t begin. But the night after we returned home, Jo’s contractions started and we raced back to hospital. Straight away, a foetal monitor was placed on her tummy. The brisk heartbeat we had been following so closely in the previous days was gone. Our daughter had died.
The train of our life was shunted on to a parallel track. We could see the train we were meant to be on pulling away, passing the milestones – the due date, introducing the baby to our family, the first smiles. But ahead of us now lay despair, guilt, a funeral, photos of our precious girl that some family members could barely bring themselves to look at, and support groups where every story would be more heart-rending than the last. There is no right way to deal with losing a baby, but I would call my coping strategy unusual: I became obsessed with growing magic mushrooms.
Continue reading...Taiwan’s marriage law brings frustration and hope for LGBT China
Public acceptance is improving, but in some cases Chinese authorities are moving in the other direction
It was a landmark moment for LGBT rights. When Taiwan passed a law allowing same-sex couples to marry, crowds in Taipei erupted into cheers, chanting: “First in Asia”.
For those watching from across the Taiwan strait in China, where gay couples do not have that right, the moment was heartening but also profoundly sad. Matthew, 27, an LGBT activist in Chengdu, spent the day following the proceedings online on his own. A few days later he flew to Taiwan to watch two male friends register their marriage after 14 years together.
Continue reading...My gay son: ‘The family said we should send him to Syria for conversion therapy’
Could an ‘outrageously heterosexual’ father handle his eldest child coming out at 16?
Sam Khalaf and his son Riyadh used to call themselves the two musketeers. When Riyadh was growing up in Bray, south of Dublin, they were inseparable. Like twins or best friends, they say. So the Iraqi-born, Irish citizen remembers keenly the moment when he realised his eldest child had drifted from him.
“We used to go everywhere together,” 54-year-old Sam recalls. “Every weekend we’d go to a tropical fish shop and pick out which koi carp to go into our pond. The first time Riyadh didn’t come with me, he was about 15. And the lad who worked there said: ‘Where’s your mate?’ I said, ‘He’s grown up now, he’s out with his friends.’ It was a shock to the system.”
Continue reading...How Stockholm became the city of work-life balance
With flexible hours the norm, and almost two years’ parental leave for every child, Sweden’s capital boasts a happy and efficient workforce. What can other cities learn?
It is 3.30pm, and the first workers begin to trickle out of the curved glass headquarters of the Stockholm IT giant Ericsson.
John Langared, a 30-year-old programmer, is hurrying to pick up his daughter from school. He has her at home every other week, so tends to alternate short hours one week with long hours the next.
Continue reading...Men who receive paid paternity leave want fewer children, study finds
Spain’s paternity leave was part of a set of policies to promote gender equality in the labor market and at home, a researcher said
Parents who received paid paternity leave took longer to have another child and men’s desire for more children dropped, a study in Spain has found. The progressive reform towards gender equality may have changed the way men in the Mediterranean country see fertility.
The introduction of paternity leave in Spain, like in other countries, was part of a set of policies designed to promote gender equality both in the labor market and at home, said Libertad González, one of the researchers behind the report. It was also to promote fertility. “Spain is a low-fertility country,” González said. But it seemed to have the opposite effect.
Continue reading...Cannes festival in row after director and baby blocked from Palais entry
British film-maker claims she was denied access to Marché du Film, then told to pay fee for baby and wait two days for it to be processed
The Cannes film festival has been criticised for its treatment of mothers and babies after a female director claimed she and her child were prevented from entering the festival site.
British director Greta Bellamacina, whose film Hurt By Paradise is screening in the market section of the festival, said the festival had displayed an “outrageous” attitude after she attempted to enter the festival with her four-month son.
Continue reading...Technology cuts children off from adults, warns expert
UCL professor says digital world disrupts family life, risking mental health of youngsters
One of the world’s foremost authorities on child mental health today warns that technology is threatening child development by disrupting the crucial learning relationship between adults and children.
Peter Fonagy, professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science at UCL, who has published more than 500 scientific papers and 19 books, warns that the digital world is reducing contact time between the generations – a development with potentially damaging consequences.
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