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Vancouver mother Wendy Tsao wanted to find the perfect comfort toy for her four-year-old son Dani, one that he would instantly bond with and cherish forever. But rather than run to the shop, she rifled through his stacks of drawings and found inspiration in his own imagination. Mrs Tsao took to needle and thread to [...]

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The worst thing about politics is how easily it can land you on the wrong side of an argument. If, for instance, you consider yourself an old-fashioned Tory, you may have found yourself spluttering into your cornflakes at the Government’s plan, announced as part of the Queen’s Speech, to give fathers more paternity leave. Men, [...]

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When I watch my children hurling themselves into the sea off a rock, I just look away and trust them not to hurt themselves. After all, they’ve been doing this stuff without me watching for years. All their physically challenging firsts are made with their father, who is far less nervous than I am, so they [...]

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My five-year-old son has taken to looking me up and down each morning and asking: ‘Are you going to wear that to work. Really?’ He stands at the bottom of the stairs critiquing my style. Yesterday, when I asked him exactly what he thought was wrong with my navy blue trousers and blue blouse, he [...]

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When my partner asked if I wanted children, I would rather have thrown myself into the traffic than say yes. For me, mother-hood was what other women did,  alongside baking and taking anti-depressants. But by this time I had realised my boyfriend was The One and I didn’t want my refusal to have a child [...]

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Trying to explain the beauty of Shakespeare to a group of unruly teenagers too busy sending text messages to listen felt like a soul-destroying way to earn a living. It was frustrating work, and secondary school teacher Sarah Kerr felt so demoralised that she needed an escape plan. So she took what she saw as [...]

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Modern, educated women are reversing a 50-year trend in feminist behaviour by starting a family rather than remain childless, new economic research shows. It could mark a new age in which ambitious women begin to realise they do not have to give up raising a family in order to achieve their other goals, it suggests. [...]

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The dilemma One of my best friends, who is also a work colleague, had a baby around the same time as me, almost two years ago. We both decided to go back to work part-time and made arrangements to job share. On the days we split between us we look after each other’s children, which [...]

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The proportion of female secondary school head teachers in Wales has doubled in eight years to nearly one-third, according to a teaching body. General Teaching Council for Wales statistics show 31.7% of heads are female, compared to 16.5% in 2004. This year has seen the biggest annual increase, with the number rising to 70 in 222 [...]

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Some families face tax rates between 53pc and 73pc on earnings over £50,000 depending on how many children they have, Treasury minister David Gauke disclosed in a parliamentary answer yesterday. The figures also showed that a fifth of those earning between £1m and £5m a year paid tax rates of less than 40pc. A new policy to [...]

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Seven midwives at a hospital in Northumberland have either just had a baby or are currently pregnant. Three midwives at Wansbeck Hospital in Ashington have already given birth while four more are pregnant with babies due in the summer. The women say they are all helping each other through what has been an extremely emotional process. Janice [...]

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By any reckoning, TV historian Lucy Worsley has done pretty well for herself. In addition to her day job as chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, the 38-year-old has written three books, made umpteen TV programmes – and has also found love, sharing a London riverside flat with her architect boyfriend.  Just about the only [...]

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Boris Johnson today announced he would help create more than 20,000 part-time jobs to help more mothers back into work.  The Mayor said he would set up 7,500 posts across the Greater London Authority but would campaign for the rest in the private sector. A new report has found that London has the lowest level of [...]

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A study of the driving forces behind female-led start-ups in Britain will be launched on Wednesday by Karren Brady, Lord Sugar’s right-hand woman on BBC TV’s The Apprentice. The report is expected to highlight a rise in the number of women in their late 40s or 50s who set up ventures, with many opting to [...]

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Nurseries have been told to provide camp beds so staff can sleep over at work to ensure a service for working parents during the Olympics. Managers warned that whole nurseries will be forced to shut if Tube delays make childcare staff late for work. June O’Sullivan, chief executive of the London Early Years Foundation, is [...]

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Are women more career-driven than men? Yes, according to a new Pew poll showing that in 2010 and 2011, 66% of women – compared to 59% of men – said being successful in a high-paying career or profession was “one of the most important things” or “very important” in their lives. For women, that’s a [...]

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Nearly a third of new mothers go into debt due to taking maternity leave, while one in 10 cut their time off short to ease financial pressures, a study has suggested today. Some 28pc of those surveyed had gone into the red due to their time out of work, typically accruing almost £2,500 in debts, [...]

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Are the children of working mums braver than the offspring of stay-at-home mums? This question vexed a group of my friends as we sat in the twilight of a chilly Cornish evening on the last day of the Easter holiday. We were watching our youngsters play in the garden. Mine were racing around in pyjamas [...]

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A mother-of-nine who runs a City investment firm said today she wants to “change history” for women struggling to combine a career and family life. Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management, said her campaign to have at least 30 per cent of boardrooms filled with women was bearing fruit — and that she [...]

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Child benefit cuts: 20,000 middle class children to be pushed below poverty line Tens of thousands of middle class children could be officially classed as poor because of planned cuts to child benefit, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent10:00PM GMT 16 Mar 201243 Comments Research has found that 8,000 middle [...]

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What makes a London mother-of-two, albeit one fed up with the scramble for school places and frustrated at a mayoral race that seems to epitomise macho male politics, decide to jack in her job and go head-to-head against Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone? Siobhan Benita admits that, when the idea came to her that she could [...]

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Sexy mama! How one mother lost 40lbs of baby weight by learning to pole dance – and now she’s taking on the professionals By VICTORIA WELLMAN PUBLISHED: 18:16, 13 April 2012 | UPDATED: 19:13, 13 April 2012 Comments (0) Share Pole dancing is well on its way to disassociating itself from strippers and stilettos in [...]

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Study claims women choose ‘briefcase over baby’ if they find it hard to attract men Forget ambition, financial security and that first-class degree. A controversial study has concluded that the real reason women pursue careers is because they fear they are too unattractive to get married. The research team, made up of three women and [...]

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Child benefit proposals risk ‘intrusiveness’, says Commons library Parents face “intrusive” questions from the taxman about the length and stability of their relationships under George Osborne’s planned cuts to Child Benefit, an official report states.   The House of Commons Library says couples will have to provide detailed information about their relationship to HMRC so [...]

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Mothers ‘are being forced back to work to make ends meet’ Employment minister, Chris Grayling, said: ‘I think we are seeing more stay-at-home mums saying, “I think I’ll look for a part-time job”‘ Mothers are being forced to return to work as families struggle to make ends meet, employment minister Chris Grayling said.     He added [...]

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Easter has come and gone and it’s now the time of year when many of you will be busily searching for your next role. So I just wanted to mention a couple of things we have at the Guardian Teacher Network to help make that job search quicker, easier and more effective. The first is [...]

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You might think having her leg shattered in an Iraqi mortar attack was bad enough. But for Hannah Campbell, the only mother in the British Army to lose a limb in a war zone, it was just the start. The blast buried Hannah and left her partially blinded in one eye and needing plastic surgery [...]

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Karen Blackett is star-spotting over afternoon tea in London’s Wolseley restaurant. She picks out Dennis Wise, the diminutive former England midfielder and David Dein, one-time Arsenal vice-chairman. But maybe the stars should be spotting Blackett, who has £1bn a year to spend. Strictly speaking it’s not her cash, but she runs a company that will [...]

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Rothschild managing director Sian Westerman is judging this year’s Veuve Clicquot awards. She tells Louisa Peacock why women need more executive role models. Sian Westerman is taking a breather. She’s mixing business with pleasure in Hong Kong and is grateful that, as a senior banker away from the UK, she is not being treated like [...]

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Hilary Rosen’s attack on Ann Romney handed husband Mitt a rare PR opportunity with women. But the debate over the value of stay-at-home motherhood obscures the real picture of women in the workforce, and without. • The number of stay-at-home mothers dropped from 9.8 million in 1969 to 5.7 million in 2009, according to a [...]

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The majority of British mothers feel guilty about going out to work and not devoting enough time to their children, a new report reveals today. Around 88 per cent – the third highest in Europe – say they have got their work life balance wrong, with half blaming money worries due to the recession for [...]

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Every day is Bring Your Child To Work Day at the European Parliament. And no one takes advantage of the family-friendly rules more than Licia Ronzulli – who has been taking along her 18-month-old daughter since she was a baby. Judging by this hilarious picture from yesterday’s debating session in Strasbourg, Victoria is no longer [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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She has made a name for herself as a devoted wife and stay-at-home mother-of-four. Now Jools Oliver is putting her skills to good use – designing a new collection for Mothercare. The 36-year-old wife of celebrity chef Jamie has signed up with the struggling retailer in a bid to attract new shoppers. Jools Oliver, pictured [...]

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Lyndsey Graham is having a parallel parking nightmare at the supermarket. Her two-year-old, Dylan, is squawking from his car seat, a shaft of sunlight is dazzling her eyes and the bay she is backing into seems designed for a vehicle half the size. The scene is a familiar one to parents around the country, only [...]

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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 [...]

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Even if the arch feminist Germaine Greer did once dismiss Cherie Blair as a mere “concubine”, women’s rights have always been close to the heart of the former prime minister’s wife. Now, however, Mrs Blair, who runs a foundation for women, says it is a “myth” that members of her sex can ever have it [...]

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Bread-winning wives who earn more than their stay-at-home husbands are crippled by guilt about ‘abandoning’ their children, research reveals today. About 1.4million families in Britain rely on a high-earning woman whose husband or boyfriend is raising their children full-time, or works part-time. In this dramatic reversal of the traditional family set-up, four in ten mothers [...]

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I am a senior marketing professional with 13 years of experience. I am 39 and after returning to work four months after having a baby, I just don’t care. My son is almost two, and all my husband and I seem to do is work to pay for nursery fees. Although we generally work regular [...]

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High on the sheep-speckled downs that rise up behind our Cotswolds village is an old hill fort, from whose green ramparts you can see across four counties on a clear day. It’s the perfect place to walk off a spell of festive over-indulgence, and a favourite place for us to head with family or friends. [...]

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When Gaby Hinsliff resigned as political editor of The Observer in 2009 many at the newspaper were very surprised. Of course she had a toddler at home and a working husband but couldn’t she stagger on regardless like everyone else? Yes, she explained in her swansong article, she could. But she didn’t want to. Leaving [...]

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A mother of three has created a wristband to help children find their parents when they get lost. Now Claire Bardner hopes her award-winning invention will become a high street hit. It can store up to five telephone numbers, each accessed by pressing a button. When a button is pressed the number flashes up so [...]

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It sounds like the most unlikely thing to take place in a family home, but new research has shown that more and more single mothers are supplementing their income by operating phone sex lines. Now three women have revealed exactly why they decided to take on such work. They told Good Morning America how they [...]

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Mothers employed part time reported better overall health and fewer symptoms of depression

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Mothers with jobs tend to be healthier and happier than those who stay at home during their children’s early years, it has been found.

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Women really are better multi-taskers than men – according to a study showing that they spend nearly half their time doing at least two things at once.

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Women really are better multi-taskers than men – according to a study showing that they spend nearly half their time doing at least two things at once.

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Mothers will feel isolated and unsafe if free parking is abolished in central London, critics said today.

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Women have long fought for flexibility, but a new study suggests mixing business with children just doesn’t work

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