Parent Pages new website

One in four cash-strapped mothers is being forced to return items at the checkout or buy low-cost own brand products in order to make ends meet. In a desperate attempt to disguise the impact of the economic downturn from their children, mothers are re-filling branded cereal boxes with supermarket own brand versions. The tactics being [...]

Read the full story

A painful womb condition affecting two million British women has been linked to a greater risk of ovarian cancer. Women suffering endometriosis are three times more likely to develop the disease, say researchers. A study has identified three types of ovarian cancer which are more common in women with endometriosis, a condition that also affects [...]

Read the full story

Anxiety about their own health and that of their babies could leave older mothers open to depression, research suggests. A study of thousands of mothers of children aged five and under found depression rates to be far higher in those aged 40 to 44 than among those who were younger. Though the cause was unclear, [...]

Read the full story

Women in their late thirties and early forties who have recently given birth are more likely to be depressed than younger mothers. This could be down to the higher levels of stress older women go through during pregnancy due to concerns about their and their baby’s health, it was claimed. Giulia Muraca, a PHD student [...]

Read the full story

I’m 23 and I’m pregnant. It was a surprise, but my boyfriend and I are very much in love and were planning on getting married and having a family in the next few years anyway, so we thought, ‘Why not?’ All was fine until I began to feel low, worrying about how we’ll make ends [...]

Read the full story

Eilish Colclough, 44,  a former businesswoman, was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer five years ago and was told that at best she had five years to live, at worst, just one or two. She lives in Buxton, Derbyshire, with her husband Anthony, 44, and five children, Emma, 25, Megan, 19, Abigail, 18, Jemima, 15, and [...]

Read the full story

New mothers may be told that they will be back to ‘normal’ within six weeks of giving birth, but a new study has found that most women take much longer to recover. Dr Julie Wray, of Salford University, interviewed women two to three weeks, three months and six to seven months after they had given [...]

Read the full story

The 27-year-old university graduate, who was born a woman but has had treatment to change his gender, gave birth to a girl in March last year, and admitted he had had to cope with concerns from his family. He said his parents took the pregnancy well but added: “They seemed to be OK but I [...]

Read the full story

A mother of four has spoken out about her ordeal at the hands of an Orthodox Jewish community- saying she was trapped in an abusive arranged marriage for six years. Pearlperry Reich, 30, says she was pushed into an arranged marriage with Sinai Meir Sholz in her home of Borough Park in Brooklyn, New York [...]

Read the full story

The man, whose identity has not been disclosed, gave birth to a healthy baby girl in March last year. He was able to have a child after taking female hormones to reverse the effects of his female-to-male sex change treatment. He had been living as a man for five years and had legally changed his [...]

Read the full story

Mothers and daughters have a unique bond. Our mums are often our best friends, our biggest supporters and sometimes our harshest critics. But what would it be like to have your mother as your business partner? As new unemployment figures show twice as many people are losing their jobs, a rising group of women have [...]

Read the full story

A mother described today how she was “traumatised” when thieves stole her performance car with her five-year-old son still inside. At 5pm yesterday, the 24-year-old woman, who does not want to be named, was driving her Mitsubishi Lancer Evo in Stakes Hill Road, Waterlooville, Hampshire, when a BMW car crashed into the back of her [...]

Read the full story

A woman celebrating her birthday on a family holiday in Austria has died following a freak snowboarding accident. Mother-of-two Sandra Thompson, 59, was coming down the slope when she hit her head during ‘an innocuous little fall’ in front of her family. The former teacher died two days later from a severe brain swelling after [...]

Read the full story

A book about a boy and his terminally ill mother, conceived by a writer who herself died from cancer, has won a prize decided solely by young readers. American author Patrick Ness said he was “chuffed” to receive the Red House children’s book award for A Monster Calls at London’s Southbank Centre. The book was [...]

Read the full story

The number of parents being terrorised and assaulted by their violent children is growing, parenting charities warn. Children and young people’s violence against parents is “the last taboo” of family life and goes largely unreported as parents attempt to protect their aggressive offspring from authorities, they say. The charity Family Lives has seen an increasing [...]

Read the full story

Natasha Ozimek was 16, and two days away from sitting her physics AS-level, when her father John told her he was planning to change sex; a process known as transitioning. “It was awful when I found out. My throat was doing a wobbly and then I just burst into tears. Dad was trying to hug [...]

Read the full story

Karen Veness always thought herself a calm, rational and amiable woman. But in her early 30s she suddenly became bitter, resentful and mean-spirited towards friends and even to her own sister-in-law. The depth of her anger, jealousy and hatred took her completely by surprise. Painful truth: Becky Bramall (26) from Hull, lost a friendship due [...]

Read the full story

Their relationship was doomed from the start. And after seven years of dating, Martin Kelly’s family still refuse to accept Kaylee Muldoon into their community – because she’s not a gypsy. As a result, the couple, who are also parents to one-year-old Johnny, live completely separate lives. The 23-year-old compares their scenario to that of [...]

Read the full story

We thought the day would never come – but, for the first time ever, a group of indomitable and infamous pageant moms have been given the beauty queen treatment, transforming them into adult-sized versions of their daughters. Anderson Cooper and his team have taken TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras’ four most famous mothers and given them [...]

Read the full story

The North-South divide in the smoking habits of pregnant women was revealed yesterday as official figures showed new mothers in the North-east of England were three times more likely to smoke than those in London. One in five women in the North-east classed themselves as smokers when they gave birth, compared with just 6 per [...]

Read the full story

Seven out of 10 families are living on the edge of financial survival – facing meltdown if the smallest thing changes in their finances, according to research by Netmums. One in 20 families are having to take regular payday loans and one in 100 have turned to loan sharks to stay afloat, reveals the survey [...]

Read the full story

More than 2,100 women and girls in London have sought hospital treatment for genital mutilation over the past six years, figures revealed today. The extent of the suffering in the capital was revealed for the first time after Freedom of Information requests by the Evening Standard. The figures showed that 2,167 women – almost one [...]

Read the full story

This is the moment a terrified mother and her helpless baby were almost swept away by a rapidly rising tide. The young mother is shown losing her footing while pushing her child in a buggy across a causeway in the Firth of Forth. Both the woman and the pram were submerged in the water before [...]

Read the full story

Visitors look at Chinese artist Song Dong’s “Waste Not” in The Curve at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. The exhibition consists of more than 10,000 objects that were collected by the artist’s mother over a period of five decades. via Waste Not: Chinese artist Song Dong exhibits thousands of items collected by his mother [...]

Read the full story

An obese mum was shamed into shedding nine stone after getting so fat she got wedged in the bath. Weighty Sharon Holden, 38, tipped the scales at 22 stone 10lbs after gorging on high-calorie sandwiches, crisps and greasy takeaways. But she turned her life around after becoming stuck in her own white porcelain bath when [...]

Read the full story

They emerge from the sea in bikinis no bigger than a handkerchief. Their figures are fabulous by any standards, let alone for women who have given birth a matter of weeks before. Nowadays it seems it is par for the course for celebrity mums to showcase their slender shapes in the time it takes most [...]

Read the full story

Many of those questioned admitted they brag about their baby’s early development in crawling, walking or talking, or the classroom achievements of older children. Others boast about losing pregnancy pounds quickly, keeping their houses tidy or having a successful husband. But although 78 per cent of survey respondents agreed that their one-upmanship at the school [...]

Read the full story

The widow of a man killed in the summer riots has given birth to a son who will never know his hero dad. Shahzad Ali, 30, died alongside his brother Abdul Musavir, 31, and friend Haroon Jahan, 21, in a heroic attempt to stop rioters breaking into a friend’s business in Birmingham on August 10. [...]

Read the full story

My mother has terminal cancer and does not have long left. She has one toddler grandchild, and my husband and I were planning another baby when she was diagnosed. Should we go ahead, as I know my mother would love to know at least the sex of her unborn grandchild, or avoid the stresses of [...]

Read the full story

A mother-of-two recovered from flu only to find that her accent had changed from Brummie to French. Debie Royston, 40, originally from Birmingham, suffered a series of seizures after a bad bout of the illness. It caused her to lose the ability to speak and, when her voice did come back a month later, she [...]

Read the full story

Judges and lawyers are already anticipating the government’s proposed reforms to the status of separated parents by pioneering ‘shared residence orders’, according to a leading family solicitor. The orders, under which children are looked after by both parents, are becoming increasingly common, says Jonathan West, head of family and matrimonial at the firm Prolegal. Earlier [...]

Read the full story

Mothers are being forced to accept badly paid, low-skilled jobs after having children because there are so few decent part-time jobs in Britain, a report warns today. The research warns women are paying a ‘shockingly high price for motherhood’ because bosses offer either well-paid full-time jobs – or poor quality part-time work. The report, from [...]

Read the full story

Gary McKinnon’s mother marched on 10 Downing Street yesterday to condemn the ‘barbaric’ treatment of her son. Janis Sharp went to the Prime Minister’s official residence to mark a decade of ‘fear and torment’ since her son’s arrest for computer hacking. Flanked by backers including Trudie Styler, MP David Burrowes and civil liberties campaigner Shami [...]

Read the full story

The mother of a five-year-old girl who was gunned down as she played in her uncle’s shop today described the horror of the shooting. Thusha Kamaleswaran’s heart stopped twice before she was brought back to life by doctors but she remains paralysed for life, the Old Bailey has heard. She was the innocent victim of [...]

Read the full story

A 21st stone woman suffering from ‘body blindness’ like Dawn French shed almost half her body weight after a shock revelation brought her to her senses. While Georgina Crook, from Burton, Staffs., had always been overweight, she was never bullied at school, never heard a cruel comment in passing and enjoyed a loving relationship with [...]

Read the full story

Mothers are being forced to accept badly paid, low-skilled jobs after having children because there are so few decent part-time jobs in Britain, a report warns today. The research warns women are paying a ‘shockingly high price for motherhood’ because bosses offer either well-paid full-time jobs – or poor quality part-time work. The report, from [...]

Read the full story

Mothers are being forced to accept badly paid, low-skilled jobs after having children because there are so few decent part-time jobs in Britain, a report warns today. The research warns women are paying a ‘shockingly high price for motherhood’ because bosses offer either well-paid full-time jobs – or poor quality part-time work. The report, from [...]

Read the full story

The mother of a five-year-old girl who was paralysed for life in a gang shooting sobbed yesterday as she saw CCTV footage of the moment her daughter was hit. Sharmila Kamaleswaran broke down at the sight of her daughter Thusha sprawled helpless on the floor after she was shot by a stray bullet at her [...]

Read the full story

A mother whose obsessive compulsive disorder got so bad she considered committing suicide has now managed to get the condition under control, and helps others to do the same. Debbie Thomson, who has suffered from OCD since she was a child, revealed how she used to think her family would die if she touched a [...]

Read the full story

Have you ever been asked to admit to the happiest moment in your life? I think it is supposed to be on your wedding day, or the moment you held your first-born child. It is the sort of question daughters are inclined to ask, and I remember shocking one of mine by suggesting that my [...]

Read the full story

The bond between sisters Luan Moreton, Kim Jones and Jemma Dennis could not be any stronger. Losing their 32-year-old mother, Rita, to breast cancer in 1986, when they were 12, seven and four, they share an exceptional closeness. What they didn’t know until five years ago, however, is that they share something else too; something [...]

Read the full story

A mother who claims she does not remember abandoning her two young sons at a gas station said her son later told her ‘Mommy you lost me’. Sarah Hatfield disappeared for 12 hours after leaving her children aged two and four in her van in Colorado along with her car keys, purse and mobile on [...]

Read the full story

It was a day like any other. I got back from work, called out my wife’s name, Kim, and waited for my little boy, Jobe, then two, to come running up to me as usual. Nothing happened; the house was silent. The washing was still on the line, so I assumed they’d popped out. Day turned [...]

Read the full story

Being annoyed by Gwyneth Paltrow is the very definition of pointlessness – like railing against the existence of death, or buying anti-cellulite cream. Yet at times it’s impossible to resist. The multi-millionaire film star usually doles out impractical lifestyle advice through her website, Goop. But this week she gave an interview to the fashion magazine [...]

Read the full story

Singles who long for children without the obligation of romantic involvement can now search for their perfect ‘co-parenting’ match online, thanks to a new website. Launched last week, Modamily calls itself: ‘The first online community to facilitate introductions between responsible, like-minded adults committed to co-parenting a child.’ So far the New-York based service that caters [...]

Read the full story

Even now, I can still remember the exact spot in my bedroom where my mother was standing as she announced she was divorcing my father. My parents had been due to emigrate to Australia for a ‘fresh start’ after years of affairs, separations and recriminations. I was ten so I still believed in ‘happily-ever-afters’. I [...]

Read the full story

This is the touching moment a young daughter tenderly cuts her cancer-stricken mother’s hair to prepare her for chemotherapy. In the intimate video Lola Etchells, 6, is also shown shaving the head of her mother Sarah, 44, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last September. Intimate: Lola carefully clips her mother Sarah’s hair The footage [...]

Read the full story

A mother eyed me curiously at my sons’ school fair, where I was manning the kitchen, baking baguettes and heating up soup. ‘You’re a real Beta Male, aren’t you?’ she said. For a moment, I thought I’d misheard her. ‘You mean a Better Male?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘A Beta Male, as in, not [...]

Read the full story

Miss Paltrow, who won an Oscar for her role in Shakespeare in Love, said she cooks for her husband, Coldplay star Chris Martin, and bathes their children, Apple, 7, and Moses, 5. She rises at 7am and works on her website and cookery books while her children are at school, before preparing dinner for her [...]

Read the full story

Squeezed into a four-bedroom council house in Guernsey lives a woman branded the UK’s most prolific single mother. Joanne Watson, 40, has 14 children, ranging in age from three to 22 and survives largely on state benefits after the breakdown of her marriage in 2010. Once celebrated in endless articles in the press for her [...]

Read the full story