Category Archives: Parents and parenting

Pandemic could lead to profound shift in parenting roles, say experts

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Men are spending more time with their children and businesses are seeing economic benefits of flexible working

The year 2020 has been transformative for how society sees fatherhood, and could produce the most profound shift in caring responsibilities since the second world war, according to researchers, business leaders and campaigners.

Research has shown that while women bore the brunt of extra childcare during the initial coronavirus lockdown and are being disproportionately impacted by the economic fallout, there has been also a huge surge in the number of hours men are spending with their children.

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My father-in-law criticises my parenting. How do I deal with that?

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I wonder if, far from disliking you, he actually quite likes and admires you, says Annalisa Barbieri. He clearly wants your attention

My husband’s parents live nearby and have been a great support since my son was born last year (my family live abroad). They regularly help out with childcare and, despite a few minor differences of opinion, we trust them and are grateful we can rely on them when we need a helping hand.

But my father-in-law has become very critical of me. He regularly makes hurtful comments, always aimed at me, even when it’s something involving my husband. Often the comments get laughed off by other people or just ignored. I tend not to respond to them – I clam up when I’m hurt or embarrassed.

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Chrissy Teigen describes losing baby in heartbreaking detail: ‘Utter and complete sadness’

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Model and author thanks strangers for reaching out – and hits back at those who accused her of oversharing about pregnancy loss

A few weeks after Chrissy Teigen made her harrowing stillbirth public in candid social media posts, the model and author has shared an intimate testimony about her experience, including her decision to have photos taken from her hospital bed during the event and what the public response to them has meant to her.

In an essay published on Medium, Teigen detailed how she and her husband, the musician John Legend, lost their third child just over halfway into the pregnancy. Teigen was admitted to hospital after persistent bleeding and multiple blood transfusions, and diagnosed with partial placenta abruption. She was induced to give birth to the infant, whom they had named Jack.

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Single fathers with children via surrogates flee Russia amid crackdown

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Authorities’ attack on LGBT community turns on men who use surrogacy who are assumed to be gay

Several gay men have fled Russia after officials said that they would arrest people “of non-traditional sexual orientation” who had had children through surrogacy. The announcement formed the authorities’ latest attack on the LGBT community.

Surrogacy is legal in Russia but has increasingly been attacked by conservative lawmakers and the Orthodox church. Police arrested a number of top fertility doctors this year and have accused them of “child trafficking” in an ongoing case.

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California lawmaker Buffy Wicks brings newborn baby to state assembly floor for vote – video

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California politician Buffy Wicks was forced to bring her newbown baby on the state assembly floor after she was denied a proxy vote. Wicks, who gave birth to a daughter in late July via C-section, had requested to vote by proxy two weeks prior and cited Covid-19 concerns. After her request was denied by the assembly speaker, Anthony Rendon, footage of Wicks nursing her child while speaking about a bill  was shared widely online by prominent political figures including Hillary Clinton

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Paloma Faith: ‘I did a whole tour with postnatal depression. I was devastated’

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The singer and actor on her ‘extremely politically correct’ upbringing, the challenges of parenthood and how lockdown forced her to rewrite her new album

There were choirs planned for Paloma Faith’s new album, a swell of voices to fill out the optimistic, celebratory songs. Then the pandemic struck. The album changed dramatically, in just a few weeks. Some of the more upbeat songs were dropped, she says, because in the midst of so much crisis and loss, “it felt like the lyrics could be perceived as a bit patronising”. New songs spilled out of Faith and the other writers, all four singles written in lockdown, then recorded in a studio set up in her basement. The songs sound more solitary now; more suited to the times.

We speak over Zoom, Faith lying on a bed at home in London. Infinite Things is her fifth album; her first was released in 2009, and all have been hugely successful. There have also been big singles, such as Only Love Can Hurt Like This and Picking Up the Pieces. Her latest album is also her most personal, perhaps as a result of this year’s forced intimacy.

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‘I’m going round in circles’: parents in England still undecided about return to school

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As government guidance continues to change over mask-wearing in schools, many are anxious about the risk to families

Eva Harratt, 13, would love to go to the park to meet her friends but it is forbidden because she lives in Oldham, the town in Greater Manchester facing restrictions due to a rise in Covid-19 cases. And yet, in five days, she is expected to return to her 1,370-pupil school and sit in classes of 30.

She likes school, misses her friends and wants to go back, but her mother is in the most vulnerable category because of an autoimmune disease. “Returning to school, I feel, is just not an option for me. They don’t appear to have given much thought to families with shielding members, or how that may affect them. Personally, I would prefer for things to go back to normal as soon as possible, but in the current situation, it is just not plausible for me,” says Eva.

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From the wreck of the pandemic we can salvage and resurrect an inner life | Nyadol Nyuon

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Covid gives us an opportunity to weigh up what truly belongs and what can be left back in the life before the plague

  • This is part of a series of essays by Australian writers responding to the challenges of 2020

In early March I flew to New Zealand through the busy Tullamarine airport. I returned to a country in lockdown. I had been to speak at the New Zealand festival of the arts held in Wellington. Life was normal. We moved freely: going out for drinks, eating at various restaurants, hugging friends and shaking hands. We even went to a club to dance. It was packed as sweaty, dancing bodies pumped into each other. We casually spoke about the spread of the coronavirus as it began to emerge as a potentially serious public health issue but the consequences and impact of the disease felt distant. It was still happening far away. It was not yet an issue to worry about or to change one’s plans to accommodate. At that time, such a reaction would have appeared exaggerated. The events that followed over the next few days were unimaginable.

At the festival, I had presented to a full room of a few hundred people; 24 hours later, that felt like a bygone era. By the time I landed in Melbourne, restrictions were in place and large gatherings had been banned. I went home and began my 14 days of isolation. It was difficult to keep up with the pace of change. In Victoria, events progressed to a state of emergency. Back in New Zealand, the country went into a nationwide lockdown. The world became a different place within weeks.

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Improve your relationships – with advice from counter-terrorism experts

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Emily and Laurence Alison specialise in communication and co-operation with criminal suspects. But their methods work in the home and at work, too

“The more you push someone, the more they close up,” say Emily and Laurence Alison, a husband-and-wife psychology team. “The hungrier you are for information, the harder it will be to get that out of someone. But give the person a choice about what they say; give them some autonomy and you begin to build the rapport that may lead to a better conversation,” says Laurence.

This sounds like parenting advice and yet the Alisons’ specialism is helping counter-terrorism officers and the police to improve communication and co-operation with criminal suspects. When the atmosphere turns adversarial and competitive, as it so often does, they turn to the Alisons to help them navigate and negotiate.

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Again Once Again review – elegant meditation on the pains of motherhood

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This engaging, philosophical film unpicks the challenges faced by a young mother trying to reconnect with the life she had before her son’s birth

A woman leaves her boyfriend to visit her mum in Buenos Aires, taking their three-year-old son with her – not sure yet if it’s a holiday or a breakup. She hasn’t worked since her son was born and is having an emotional and intellectual crisis. She feels almost non-existent. “I don’t see myself. Who am I?”

This is an elegant, elusive debut from the Argentinian playwright Romina Paula, who picks away at the fantasy that motherhood leads to instant fulfilment. Her film is like an arthouse version of the sitcoms Motherland and Catastrophe, with fewer laughs and more philosophical introspection. It has the feel of a feminist essay that has been semi-dramatised for screen – with Paula starring as a fictional version of herself and her real-life mum and son Ramón playing themselves.

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The power of touch: when my son visited in lockdown, we couldn’t hug. It was a reminder of the saddest truth

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My son’s 14th birthday was the first he and I had spent apart – then he called to say his mother had Covid-19. We were faced with a reality I had hoped to forestall for ever

Welcome to the Guardian’s Power of Touch series

We Jacksons are not effusive types. There ain’t a helluva lot of hugging and touching at family gatherings. However, one of the few exceptions is my son, who’s been unfettered with his affections since he was toddling around his mother’s New Jersey home – he and I have never lived together full-time. My son’s been a boy who, unprompted, says, “Dad, I love you” and wraps me in the tightest of hugs. Who, when he’s seen his sister after a long absence, almost tackles her with glee. Who’s still apt to let a deluge go on account of hurt feelings. In plenty of explicit ways, he’s my emotional opposite, a boy who showed me how to embrace; who, along with his sister, softened parts of me that my own boyhood had hardened; a kid who’s been instrumental in ushering me as close to comfortable with physical expressions of love as I have been in all my almost 45 years of life.

What kind of father was I that I was scared to receive my flesh and blood?

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Physical play with fathers may help children control emotions, study finds

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Research suggests father-child play at an early age could benefit children as they get older

Children whose fathers spend time playing with them at a very early age may find it easier to control their behaviour and emotions, which has a beneficial impact as they get older and start school, according to a new study.

Research carried out by Cambridge University’s faculty of education and the LEGO Foundation looked at how mothers and fathers play with children aged 0 to 3 years and how it affects child development.

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‘One in a 50m chance’: woman with two wombs carrying a twin in each

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Kelly Fairhurst found out about uterus condition when she went for 12-week scan

The case of a woman who discovered she had two wombs and was pregnant with a twin in each has been described as “one in 50m” by doctors.

Kelly Fairhurst, 28, only learned she had uterus didelphys, a condition where a woman has two wombs, when she went for her 12-week scan. She was also told she was carrying twins, one in each womb.

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Coronavirus: what changes mean for people shielding in England

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From 6 July, people with underlying health issues will no longer have to avoid all contact with others

With the government relaxing lockdown for those shielding from Covid-19 in England, we explore what this means for the most vulnerable in society.

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The stranded babies of Kyiv and the women who give birth for money

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Lockdown exposed the scale of the commercial baby business in Ukraine, and now women hired for their wombs are speaking out

Some are crying in their cots; others are being cradled or bottle-fed by nannies. These newborns are not in the nursery of a maternity hospital, they are lined up side by side in two large reception rooms of the improbably named Hotel Venice on the outskirts of Kyiv, protected by outer walls and barbed wire. 

They are the children of foreign couples born to Ukrainian surrogate mothers at the Kyiv-based BioTexCom Centre for Human Reproduction, the largest surrogacy clinic in the world. They’re stranded in the hotel because their biological parents have not been able to travel in or out of Ukraine since borders closed in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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‘I feel I’ve come home’: can forest schools help heal refugee children?

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They have a middle-class reputation, but one outdoor school near Nottingham is reconnecting disadvantaged 10-year-olds with nature and a sense of freedom

When Kate Milman was 21, she paused her English degree at the University of East Anglia to join protests against the Newbury bypass. It was 1996, and the road was being carved out through idyllic wooded countryside in Berkshire. She took up residence in a treehouse, in the path of the bulldozers, and lived there for months. It was a revelation. She lived intimately with the catkins, the calling birds, the slow-slow-fast change in the seasons. Despite being in a precarious position as a protester, she felt completely safe and her brain was calmed.

“You know when you go camping and go back to your house, and everything feels wrong? The lighting is harsh and everything seems complicated indoors. It just got under my skin, this feeling – that [living in the woods] is like being at home.”

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Refuges from domestic violence running out of space, MPs hear

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Dame Vera Baird warns select committee Covid-19 lockdown is leading to ‘perfect storm’

Refuges providing sanctuary to victims of domestic violence are running out of space, with many full or effectively closed amid an “epidemic inside this pandemic”, the victims’ commissioner has told MPs.

A “perfect storm” of problems is in danger of overwhelming support services for those trying to escape violent and abusive partners, Dame Vera Baird QC warned members of the House of Commons justice select committee.

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Being locked down with my family is making me panic

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Count your blessings and enjoy the lull this slower pace of life is providing, says Mariella Frostrup

The dilemma I know I should be thinking about the global crisis and what’s happening to those less fortunate, but I can’t get beyond panicking about my own circumstances. I’m stuck at home with four kids, two dogs, a husband whose freelance work is in free fall and my own career is on hold. I’m struggling to deal with being cooped up with young children and I’m also wondering if crimes of passion will receive more lenient sentencing as my husband and I haven’t spent this much time together since our honeymoon! I appreciate you are as new to this as the rest of us, but do you have any words of wisdom?

Mariella replies Not really! Like many of you I know I should be thinking about the bigger picture, but for us mere mortals, who aren’t aspiring to – or ever likely to receive – canonisation, it can be a struggle to see beyond our own noses at the moment.

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Time to cut each other some slack amid lockdown fury | Zoe Williams

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In the coronavirus pandemic, everyone is trying to create new rules by constantly, volubly judging each other. Better to realise we don’t know the pressures others are under

Before we went into lockdown, I was trying to persuade my mother to reduce her contact circle to five. It seems absurd, now that everyone of advanced age and comorbidities has been told to see no one at all, but way back then (three weeks ago), this seemed reasonable. She immediately bartered the number up to six. It was like negotiating with Tony Soprano: there was no way she was coming out of the deal without the upper hand. Then I asked her how she planned to tell the rest of her associates that they weren’t on the list, and she said: “Good heavens, I’m not going to tell them. That would be so rude!”

Then the list was reduced to zero, but mysteriously, one of the original six went round anyway to fix her letterbox. I asked what was the point of fixing her letterbox, when the only important letter she was going to get would be from the government, telling her not to have anyone round, irrespective of whether or not she had a defective letterbox. She said she would prefer to have less advice, and be given a lethal injection. “I wouldn’t mind,” she said, graciously. “I”m not sure whether the main impediment to euthanasia is whether or not you mind,” I observed, extremely calmly and not at all sarcastically.

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