Huge rows, awkward silences, and embarrassing moments – for many, a week with the in-laws is the complete opposite of a relaxing break.
Until now, British families have tended to shun holidaying with their extended families, but the need to save money during the recession is changing that.
Cost-cutting holidaymakers are increasingly choosing to travel with their in-laws, according to letting companies.
By Rebecca Lefort
Published: 10:15AM BST 01 Aug 2010
Huge rows, awkward silences, and embarrassing moments – for many, a week with the in-laws is the complete opposite of a relaxing break.
Until now, British families have tended to shun holidaying with their extended families, but the need to save money during the recession is changing that.An increasing number of holidaymakers are travelling with three generations together – children, parents and grandparents – to get better-value deals and the added bonus of free babysitting….Continue Reading
The grainy footage lasts only a few seconds, but for Arfan Haque it is almost impossible to watch.
By ANGELLA JOHNSON
Last updated at 1:05 PM on 1st August 2010
Two teenagers land vicious punches on a 67-year-old man, who collapses to the ground. Then a three-year-old girl is seen sobbing in distress as she tries to ‘wake up’ her unconscious grandfather.
The victim was Arfan’s father Ekram, who died in hospital a week later, having suffered serious brain damage as his head hit the pavement. The trauma experienced by Arfan’s only daughter Mariam in witnessing the tragedy is immeasurable. ‘I first saw the footage while my father was in hospital. I cried because it was all so terrible,’ says Arfan. ‘It was all so senseless and the most shocking part was that it happened in front of Mariam.’
The violence was caught on CCTV camera outside a mosque in Tooting, South London, last August. Last Monday, local youths Leon Elcock, 16, and Hamza Lyzai, 15, admitted manslaughter at the Old Bailey and were jailed for four-and-a-half and three-and-a-half years respectively….Continue Reading
A boy of ten has been arrested on suspicion of causing the death of a grandfather by throwing stones at motorists on a busy road.
By TOM KELLY
Last updated at 8:50 PM on 28th July 2010
Michael Baker, 47, died after the truck he was travelling in collided with an articulated lorry.
The lorry driver was trying to pull over to the hard shoulder with a broken windscreen after it was struck by rocks thrown by youths.The boy is suspected of being part of a gang of up to 15 youngsters seen pelting vehicles with missiles – some ‘larger than tennis balls’ – from a grass bank overlooking the busy A20 near Swanley, Kent….Continue Reading
By Georgina Johnson
Published: 3:46PM BST 22 Jul 2010
Officially, one in 10 of us is in a stepfamily. Unofficially – as my teenage stepdaughter would say – it has to be, like, so much more than that.
As well as being a stepmotherto two children, I am also a stepdaughter. I have two stepsisters and a stepbrother. Thanks to my grandfather’s remarriage, I have a stepgrandmother, and a host of stepaunts and stepcousins. I have much-loved stepnephews and nieces. They in turn have their own sets of stepmothers, stepfathers, stepsiblings and so on. At my stepsister’s wedding, my stepmother sat at the lunch between her ex- and current husbands. My stepbrother’s ex-wife – there with her new husband and stepchildren – got on the dance floor with his new girlfriend….Continue Reading
A grandmother has died after she was knocked into a canal by a falling tree during a family boating holiday as her two young grandchildren watched in horror.
By Murray Wardrop
Published: 7:29AM BST 21 Jul 2010
Wendy Brennan, 61, was forced under the water when a willow tree crashed down onto their narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal in Stoke Hammond, Bucks.
Her husband and son, who were also on-board, were thrown into the water, but while they were able to pull themselves to safety, Mrs Brennan disappeared beneath the surface.By the time rescuers managed to pull the churchgoer out, she had swallowed a large amount of water and was unconscious….Continue Reading
Escalating childcare charges mean the cost of raising a son or daughter in Britain has risen to £800 a month, according to a report.
By Nick Collins
Published: 8:12AM BST 12 Jul 2010
Between birth and the age of 21, each child will cost their family an average of £200,000 – or about £800 a month – the Family and Parenting Institute (FPI) said.
Nursery fees have risen 5.1 per cent in the last year, costing parents £30 to £80 per child per day, the charity claimed in the report released on Monday.
It said grandparents are increasingly being asked to take care of children because both parents are required to hold down full time jobs to support the family….Continue Reading
Women may go through the menopause so they can settle into a ‘grandmother role’, according to research.
Last updated at 10:45 AM on 5th July 2010
Scientists have long been puzzled as to why only humans, killer whales and pilot whales stop breeding relatively early in their lifespan.
Researchers from the Universities of Exeter and Cambridge now believe it allows females to devote more time to teaching their daughters how to raise a family.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is the first to provide a plausible explanation why these species in particular are the only ones in which females finish reproduction while they still have decades left to live.
Dr Michael Cant from the University of Exeter, said: ‘It’s always been puzzling as to why only humans and toothed whales have evolved menopause, while females in all other long-lived species continue breeding until late in life.
‘Although the social behaviours of the three menopausal species are very different, there is a common link: their social systems mean females become more related to those around them as they get older….Continue Reading
Motorists beware! A karate expert lollipop lady is ready to deal with inconsiderate drivers after getting an historic martial arts award at the age of 77.
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 9:47 AM on 5th July 2010
Grandmother Ena Mallett is the first woman ever to get a 7th dan black belt in Spirit Combat International ju-jitsu.
The widowed mother-of-two teaches weekly classes in the sport for children and adults at the village hall near her home in South Walsham, Norfolk.
She also helps out out twice a day as a lollipop lady helping children cross outside the village school.
Mrs Mallett started learning karate to keep fit in 1979 and became a Spirit Combat International instructor in 1987...Continue reading
The family of a baby boy born with back-to-front KNEES said they were disgusted that he was still waiting for specialist treatment months after his birth.
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 8:28 AM on 1st July 2010
Gabriell Camilleri-Nugent was born with hyperextended knees and bronchomalacia, meaning his lungs and airways are too small for him to breathe on his own.
A 20-week scan showed Gabriell’s legs were doubled back near his head in the womb, instead of being curled up in the foetal position.
When he was born by caesarian section last December his shocked family said he looked ‘like he was doing the splits’ as his knee caps are effectively back to front.
Now aged six months, he has worn plaster casts on both legs since birth but he is sitll waiting to be transferred to a specialist hospital for treatment.
His grandmother, Carol, 50, said the youngster’s health is being compromised by NHS bureaucracy….Continue Reading
Terminally ill boy, 5, stuns doctors by surviving… and holding his own art exhibition
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 1:50 PM on 2nd July 2010
A terminally ill boy who was not expected to live past six-months-old, has stunned doctors by surviving and holding his own art exhibition.
Leo Haines, aged five, was born with cerebral palsy and a terminal condition affecting his lungs and heart.
Doctors told his mother Marianna Haines, 26, that little Leo would die in his first year. But his fighting spirit saw him through and after spending his first brithday in hospital, Leo was able to move home.
The talented young artist, from Taunton Somerset, began painting alongside his grandmother Marianna Thomas, who quickly recognised his talent.
Leo now has 40 unique works, reminiscent of the American abstract artist Jackson Pollock, featuring in their very own art exhibition where they are being sold for charity….Continue Reading
Mother’s fury after Google Street View publishes naked picture of her son, three, online
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 10:21 PM on 29th June 2010
A woman has told of her horror after Google published a photograph of her young son naked on the internet.
Claire Rowlands, 25, was stunned to see the image of Louis mears playing on a sunny day in his grandmother’s garden in Walkden, Greater Manchester.
Louis, three, had been snapped by Google’s controversial ‘camera car’ as it took pictures of every road in Britain for the search engine’s Street View service.
The company blurred out the registration plate of a car on the drive of the house – but the image of Louis, who was wearing nothing but his shoes, was uncensored.
In another image, taken seconds later, Louis’s face was clearly identifiable, but his modesty was preserved by a fence. …Continue Reading
An 82-year-old grandmother is celebrating after landing a book deal for her debut novel.
Published: 7:30AM BST 28 Jun 2010
Myrrha Stanford-Smith, a teacher and theatre director, said she was ”gobsmacked” to be handed the three-book agreement, which saw her first work The Great Lie start appearing on shelves last week.
The trained actress, who lives in Holyhead, North Wales, has always held a passion for creative writing.
She decided to see if her talent could really take off after receiving positive feedback on a short children’s story she sent in to BBC Radio Wales last summer.
The Brighton-born writer secured herself a deal with publisher Honno, for a trilogy based around her swashbuckling Elizabethan hero Nick Talbot…Continue reading
Michael Jackson’s three children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, are to attend school for the first time later this year.
By Ben Leach
Published: 11:04AM BST 20 Jun 2010
Katherine Jackson, the children’s grandmother and guardian, said she wants to give them a more conventional upbringing after years of being kept largely hidden from the outside world.
In an interview to mark the first anniversary of her son’s death she told the Mail on Sunday: “I’d say I’m a little less strict but I’ve tried to follow the way Michael was raising them.
“But they don’t have friends. They don’t go to school. They have private lessons at home. They’ll be going to a private school in September for the first time.”
But the 80-year-old great-grandmother dismissed the suggestion that they could ever have a normal life.
Michael Jackson died of a suspected heart attack on June 25 last year at his Los Angeles home…Continue reading
Martin Amis said becoming a grandfather was ‘so uncool’…but he’s now a doting ‘Grandpops’ says his lovechild daughter
By CLAUDIA JOSEPH and ELIZABETH SANDERSON
Last updated at 11:49 PM on 19th June 2010
Perhaps it was inevitable that Martin Amis would make a joke of it. He is a man who has made a career out of pithy one-liners and deliberately provocative points of view.
But his latest preoccupation is not sex or Islam but something far more prosaic. It is the matter of growing old.
Amis turned 60 last year but, as he told an audience at the Hay Festival recently, it was becoming a grandfather that really set him thinking.
‘It’s so uncool,’ he complained. ‘Like getting a telegram from the mortuary.’ His controversial stance made headlines – as he knew it would. But like much about Amis, it ought not to be taken at face value.
Far from finding it ‘uncool’, the author is in fact a devoted grandfather who dotes on his grandson, Isaac.
And when Isaac contracted a potentially fatal infection hours after he was born, it was Amis who spent hours by his hospital bedside stroking the little boy’s tiny forehead. ..Continue reading
Novelist Elif Shafak grew up with two very different models of Turkish motherhood – her modern, working, educated mother and her traditional, religious grandmother
By Rebecca Abrams
Saturday 19 June 2010
Three months before her first child was born, Elif Shafak, Turkey’s leading female novelist, found herself facing prosecution and a potential three-year prison sentence. Her crime? She was accused of insulting “Turkishness” in her novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, through a fictional character whose ancestors had been murdered in the Armenian genocide.
On the day of the trial, protesters inside and outside the courtroom jostled and slapped at the defendants – dozens of Turkish writers and intellectuals – shouting and throwing objects at them. “More disturbing than the actual trial,” Shafak said at the time. “Very aggressive, very provocative.”..Continue reading
Prince William and Prince Harry were given a heroes’ welcome by orphaned children as they rode side by side into a remote African mountain village yesterday.
By Gordon Rayner, in Semongkong, Lesotho
Published: 3:43PM BST 17 Jun 2010
Wearing blankets with their names embroidered on them by boys and girls from the Semongkong Children’s Centre in central Lesotho, their appearance was more spaghetti western than British Royalty.
After they dismounted, they were given a rapturous reception by the 84 children who live at the centre, which is funded by Prince Harry’s African charity, Sentebale.
Prince Harry had invited his older brother to accompany him to Lesotho to see some of the projects which he has become so passionate about, including the orphanage which was set up in 2005 by 67-year-old Jill Kinsey, a grandmother originally from Nottingham…Continue reading
Grandparents are to have increased legal rights to see children when couples split under proposals to be announced by Nick Clegg on Thursday.
By Laura Roberts
Published: 7:30AM BST 17 Jun 2010
In a speech at Barnardo’s children’s home the Deputy Prime Minister is also expected to set out new plans for flexible parental leave as well as target “irresponsible” advertising and marketing aimed at children.
Child tax credit will be reduced in favour of income tax and local communities will receive new powers to set up and protect playgrounds and playing fields.
Mr Clegg will also promise respite care for the parents of disabled children.
A new Childhood and Families Task Force composed of senior ministers and chaired by David Cameron will be set up to carry out the changes…Continue reading
Older people are becoming mentors to troubled teenagers in a Government-backed project that hopes to prove “granny knows best”.
By Martin Beckford
Published: 7:01AM BST 14 Jun 2010
More than 50 “Grandmentors” will be assigned to young people in London, providing them with support and advice.
The aim is that the retired volunteers will help the 14- to 19 year-olds in their care return to education or find work, improving their career prospects and turning them away from a life of crime.
Lord Freud, the Conservative peer who is now a junior minister for welfare reform, proposed the idea to Community Service Volunteers.
He said: “I think there is huge, untapped resource of older and retired people who could transform the lives of youngsters, many of whom don’t have someone independent to talk to. I also think there’s huge potential in jumping a generation to help tackle some of the serious problems facing young people in our society. I think it’s much harder to grow up with so many competing pressures, but there are many older people who could provide practical and emotional support.”..Continue reading
They provide moral and financial support as well as vital child care. Yet modern grandparents have busy lives of their own, as Sally Williams reports
By Sally Williams
Published: 7:00AM BST 13 Jun 2010
“When Harry comes out of school, he always runs up and says: ‘Hello, granneeee’ ” says Maureen Regan, 74. “And he only reaches my tummy, so he locks his arms around me – I think it’s because he plays rugby that he does that – and he gives me a big hug. He’s gorgeous.”
Every Thursday, Maureen travels an hour and a quarter across the capital to Wimbledon to look after her three grandchildren: Harry, 8, Ella, 5, and Lily, 2. She takes them home from school, listens to Harry chat about football, before a second later Ella will be on about her pink spangly butterfly hair-clip. She often looks after their friends, too: six or seven children in a small sitting-room, making a racket, drinking juice, eating biscuits, charging around with dolls, playing each other at computer games.
“I love it,” she says. “I’m a big part of their life.”
Without granny, her daughter-in-law’s child-care bill would be £1,000 a month – “a third of my salary”, as Sarah Regan points out. To enable her to work as a part-time clinical nurse specialist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, she already needs a child-minder (£145 a week) and a nanny for school pick-ups (£60 a week). She needs granny to save her and her husband, Paul, a director of a printing company, around £120 a month in babysitting fees – and even more in the holidays (around £100 a day), when granny steps into the breach to do cooking, feeding and bathing, while grandpa, a retired civil servant, takes them to the park…Continue reading
A project for harnessing the wisdom and time of older people to help troubled teenagers will be inaugurated next week by Lord Freud, the minister for welfare reform.
Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent
The former banker has contributed £200,000 of his own money to test an idea that he admits he “had in the bath”. He wants to see whether a grandparent figure can help a teenager who is unemployed or at risk of dropping out of college to navigate the adult world.
There are 200,000 or so teenagers struggling to progress from school to work, the so-called “Neets” — not in employment, education or training. They are at high risk of permanent unemployment, teenage pregnancy and even prison.
Successive government projects have tried to get the growing number of Neets into long-term jobs or serious training, with little effect. Lord Freud wants to try a “Big Society” approach…Continue reading
Baking together – and especially making our own bread – brings us all closer, says the French baker Richard Bertinet
By Sophie Dening
Saturday 12 June 2010
Richard Bertinet’s three children know all about real bread. Jack, nine, Tom, six, and Lola Maude, three, can tell a decent sandwich from the filled layers of pappy, additive-laced squares sold in most shops. If you ask them, they will tell you that they prefer sourdough to sliced white, which many parents would say makes them fairly unusual.
But their father, who is French, believes that all children would say the same if they were given the choice between real bread and what he calls the “bread-type product” with which we fill our supermarket trolleys. For millennia, bread has been the most fundamental basic of the human diet and if we get our bread right, Bertinet believes, the rest will follow. He even believes that it can bring parents closer to troublesome teenagers.
Born in Brittany, the son of a gendarme, Bertinet was introduced to the joys of baking by his grandmother. “She used to make wonderful doughnuts. She had a massive bowl of dough rising on the table and I used to hide beneath and steal little bits. The smell, the first bite of the doughnut … it’s my first memory as a child.”..Continue reading
Lola Koupparis, one of the twin baby girls mauled by a fox as she slept in her cot, was ”a lot better” today, her grandmother said.
Published: 9:03AM BST 09 Jun 2010
Lola and her twin sister Isabella, aged nine months, were found crying and covered in blood after the fox went into their upstairs bedroom and attacked them in their cots in Hackney, east London.
Their family remained worried about Isabella this morning.The twins’ grandmother Zoe Koupparis, from Hackney, said: ”Lola is a lot better but Isabella is still sedated.
”We’re really pleased about Lola. Nick and Pauline (the girls’ parents) are definitely pleased but of course they’re concerned about Isabella…Continue reading
Sitting side by side in their summer dresses, with floppy hats to shield them from the sun, these are the nine-month-old twins savaged in their cots by a fox.
By NEIL SEARS and KATHERINE FAULKNER
Last updated at 12:35 PM on 9th June 2010
Sitting side by side in their summer dresses, with floppy hats to shield them from the sun, these are the nine-month-old twins savaged in their cots by a fox.
Isabella and Lola Koupparis were having surgery in separate hospitals yesterday for the ‘life-changing’ injuries they sustained in the attack.
Isabella, who gazes up at the camera, had been in intensive care before being transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital, while Lola’s face was described by her mother as ‘looking like something from a horror movie’.
This morning the twins’ grandmother Zoe Koupparis said: ‘Lola is a lot better but Isabella is still sedated.
‘We’re really pleased about Lola. Nick and Pauline (the girls’ parents) are definitely pleased but of course they’re concerned about Isabella…Continue reading
As Martin Amis says it is “uncool” to be a grandparent, a fellow grandfather disagrees
by Trevor Grove
Martin Amis does so like to make one’s flesh creep. Musing on old age at the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival this week, he said that becoming a grandfather was like “getting a telegram from the mortuary”. What did the telegram say? “Hey, Grandad, here I am. Time for you to start shuffling off your mortal coil?”
How unlike my own response to my son-in-law’s phone call 19 months ago to announce the arrival of Kitty. She was my first grandchild. I suppose my feelings were just as self-centred as Amis’s, though what I thought as I held the mewling bundle in my arms was not “Hello Death,” but “Wow! Immortality!”
Thomas Hardy was equally upbeat about generations succeeding each other. “I am the family face,” he wrote in his poem Heredity. “Flesh perishes, I live on/Projecting trait and trace/Through time to times anon.” The truth is, Kitty’s face was much too scrumpled to project a trait or trace of her grandpa’s features and furthermore, she had red hair, which was certainly nothing to do with me…Continue reading
A five-year-old girl has died just two days after she achieved her ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ dream of singing for Simon Cowell.
Bethany Fenton, who had an inoperable brain tumour, was granted her wish to visit the BGT studios ahead of Saturday’s nail-biting final.
Bethany, from Fairford, near Cirencester, performed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to Simon and met some of the finalists in the competition, including singing great-grandmother Janey Cutler, drumming prodigy Kieran Gaffney and street dancers Twist and Pulse.
But today the tragic youngster passed away at the Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after a sudden deterioration in her condition at home. … Continue reading
The UK is lagging behind other European countries by failing to recognise the role grandparents play in looking after children, a study claims.
The report by Grandparents Plus claims one in three mothers in the UK rely on grandparents to provide childcare.
It says the state gives little financial recognition for this caring role, unlike other European countries.
Grandparents should not be taken for granted as cheap childcare, says the report.
The study – written in partnership with the Beth Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Gerontology at King’s College London – said many grandparents struggled to juggle work and childcare, without financial support. … Continue reading
Becoming a grandfather is ‘so uncool’ moans enfant terrible of British Literature Martin Amis.
By IAN DRURY
Last updated at 7:42 AM on 7th June 2010
He triggered outrage by suggesting euthanasia booths be set up for pensioners to end their lives with ‘a martini and a medal’.
But that hasn’t stopped Martin Amis from obsessing about death and old age –particularly his own.
The novelist told an audience of fans at the Hay on Wye Literary and Arts Festival that his becoming a grandfather was like ‘getting a telegram from the mortuary’.
He also blamed ‘modern medicine’ for keeping ageing writers alive to continue to write even though their talent had deserted them.
‘At 45 you accept mortality,’ he said. ‘At 55 you think “Death is intrigued by me.” At 60, where I am now, you think “This is not going to turn out well!”’
As the enfant terrible of British literature Amis enjoyed a reputation as a hellraising philanderer. But being a grandfather, he complained, is ‘so uncool’.
The author – who has had a string of high-profile public rows including with ex-friend and fellow novelist Julian Barnes – became a grandfather in 2008…Continue reading
An eagle-eyed grandmother saved her grandson’s life after she noticed an unusual shadow on the toddler’s eye in a holiday photo.
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 11:36 PM on 1st June 2010
Three-year-old Ewan Boarder, had developed a rare eye cancer but was showing no symptoms of the killer illness.
However, his grandmother Beverley Warner, 61, noticed a white shadow on his eye when she was leafing through photos taken on a recent holiday to the Isle of Wight.
She remembered reading about a child with cancer who had the same shadow in a photograph and warned Ewan’s parents.
Ewan was referred to the local hospital which in turn sent him on to a London hospital which diagnosed that he was suffering from retinoblastoma – a deadly tumour of the retina. Although he went on to lose an eye he survived the disease…Continue reading
InsideOut: our relationships expert Sarah Abell advises a reader on how to handle a complex family set-up in which his niece is living with his elderly parents.
Dear Sarah,
My brother went through a very nasty divorce about ten years ago. His eldest daughter is now 16. She was kicked out of her mother’s house because she is “too messy”. She does not get on with her father’s second wife (they now have their own boy of four), and she cannot live with them. Instead, she is living with her grandparents (my parents), who are worried that if they do not help out she could just “disappear”. They, however, are now in their seventies, and instead of enjoying their twilight years, find themselves caring once again for a stroppy teenager with all the problems that entails…Continue reading
FIFA has scored an “own goal” by agreeing sponsorship deals for the 2010 World Cup with companies that sell unhealthy products, campaigners say.
Page last updated at 9:18 GMT, Tuesday, 1 June 2010 10:18 UK
Excerpt:
The World Cancer Research Fund criticised the governing body for partnering with the likes of Coca Cola, McDonald’s and Budweiser. (… continues)
(… continues) The three companies are partners or official sponsors for the World Cup giving them a visible presence inside the stadiums on advertising hoardings and digital displays.
And the charity believes that with matches being watched by billions of people in more than 200 countries people across the world will be influenced.
Teresa Nightingale, the charity’s general manager, said: “There is no doubt that when it comes to the fight against childhood obesity, football can be a force for good because it is a type of physical activity that is accessible to almost everyone.
“I am sure many children will be inspired by the skills of the likes of Rooney and Messi and try to repeat them in their back gardens and local parks in the same way as their parents and grandparents once tried to emulate Maradona and Pelé.”
But she added: “It is disappointing that these companies have been chosen as sponsors and partners.
“The FIFA website describes sponsorship as an opportunity to promote brands on a global basis and we would argue that it is a real own goal to be giving this opportunity to companies that are known for unhealthy products.” … Continue reading
Maggie Gee didn’t really believe her parents were mortal till her father died and her mother, too, six months later. She treasures their times together and hopes that when the time comes, she’ll leave her own daughter with memories of love
Maggie Gee
The Guardian, Saturday 29 May 2010
In a new memoir, My Animal Life, I have written about sex, motherhood and death. How very slow I was to understand them. Largely because I once lived in my head, myopic about most of what mattered. I married late, had a child even later: one beloved daughter, Rosa, when her father and I were in our late 30s – and yet, in a way, Nick and I were still children, because you can be a child, until you have a child, and then you learn you are part of a chain.
It is a very lucky person who manages to grow up with two living parents. Naturally, as one of the lucky ones, I had managed not to realise that they would die. Ever since I was small, I had adored my mother, Aileen, a dark-haired, gypsy-ish, vivid woman who loved books and jokes and deferred to her husband. Rosa was my mother’s first granddaughter: she had five beloved grandsons, and would later have six, but Rosa would always be the only girl, just as I had been Mum’s only daughter. When we went to see my parents, in their Norfolk bungalow, Rosa would eat lunch on her grandma’s lap, and even in summer Mum would do a Christmas pudding, because she knew that Rosa loved it… Continue reading
For grandparents who discover their son or daughter has aborted a baby, it’s often an unspoken sorrow. But do they have a right to fight for that life? Because of a medical condition, when Cassey Morris accidentally fell pregnant, she planned a termination.
But her husband’s parents pleaded they had rights, too. Here, Cassey, 26, who lives in Essex with partner Richard, 30, explains to ANGELA CARLESS what happened next …
Snuggled on his grandma’s lap while she rocks him to sleep, my son Harry is gazing up into her eyes with a look of utter devotion. She’s smoothing his hair while he’s gently reaching up to stroke her face.
Meanwhile, on the sofa, Annabelle is kicking her feet and gurgling while her grandpa plays peek-a-boo with her.
Harry is two-and-a-half and Annabelle is 18 months, and they mean the world to me. Like every other mother, I revel in the close bond my children enjoy with their grandparents.
But there’s a special reason why this bond is so exceptional. Without their grandparents’ devoted love, my children wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t be a mum. … Continue reading
A doctor who has delivered 18,000 babies over a career spanning more than 60 years is still practising at 100 years old.
By Laura Roberts
Published: 1:26PM BST 25 May 2010
Dr Walter Watson, nicknamed “Papa Doc”, has been present at the births of generations spanning from grandparents down to grandchildren during his 63 years as an obstetrician.
The doctor from Augusta, Georgia, USA is thought to be the oldest practising medic in the world.
Among his patients is Sabra Allen, 77, who he has treated for 59 years. He has delivered 17 members of her family.
“He delivered all five of my kids and twelve of the grandkids,” said Mrs Allen, a retired hospital administrator.
“There ain’t no one like him, he’s the best.”
Dr. Watson, who still goes to work every day, said: “There is nothing quite as amazing at witnessing the miracle of life.
“Trouble is I remember the births with complications more vividly than the ones that went perfectly. Once you’ve done several thousand they start blending in together.”
Dr. Watson qualified at the brink of the Second World War but served in Korea until 1947.
When the war ended he returned to Georgia, his wife of 65 years Audrey and the practice of medicine. … Continue reading
When she was eight, Stephanie Theobald’s grandmother died and more than three decades on, she found herself missing the conversations they might have had. But then, as a volunteer, she met a group of ladies who help to fill the gap
Stephanie Theobald
The Guardian, Saturday 22 May 2010
I always assumed I would die at 64 because that was when my grandmother died. I was eight, and the words “breast cancer” meant nothing to me, but I accepted that 64 was old. My main memories of Grandma are of travelling from our flat above a chip shop in Cornwall to visit her country house in Suffolk in the early 1970s. I’d sit at her dressing table, prod around in her jewellery box, occasionally sneak a glance into the mirror to try to understand the scene going on behind me. Mum sat on the bed (where Grandma always seemed to be these days) and they talked – sometimes with strange expressions on their faces that reminded me of the new piano chord my grandfather had recently taught me. I knew something intense was happening, even though I was too young to experience that sadness yet.
Then there was the breakfast, a few months later, when Mum announced: “I’ve got something very sad to tell you. Grandma died last night.” Suddenly I didn’t feel hungry for my Frosties and I watched round the table, as, like a circle of skittles, everyone went down.
First my older brother cried, then my twin brother cried, then my dad looked awkward – this was a special occasion indeed because he was usually downstairs frying. “It’s all right,” I said, thinking of donkeys and clouds and stables with straw in them (the nuns at school had done a good job). “Grandma will be in heaven by now.” And I couldn’t understand why she burst into tears. … Continue reading
A majority of British families want to move closer to their parents to take advantage of free childcare despite tensions about how to properly raise their children, a survey has found.
Researchers found more than eight in ten working mothers and fathers relied on their parents at least once a week for help with looking after their children.
They found a third wanted to move close to grandparents, in order to take advantage of free childcare despite many ended up rowing about the best methods of raising a family.
Experts described getting grandparents to help raise children was a “sweet and sour” experience because while it saved money, it often led to family disputes.
Figures show grandparents save parents an average £860 a year by offering free childcare.
In a recent speech, one of the country’s most senior family lawyers, Baroness Deech said the increasing number of working women meant more grandparents were being asked to provide free child care.
The chairman of the Bar Standards Board, which regulates the work of barristers, quoted figures that showed seven out of 10 grandparents give financial support to their grandchildren, while £470 million is set aside every year into trust funds. … Continue reading
Is the diagnosis of ADHD part of a vicious circle that keeps people in jobs at the expense of children who really just need normal play.
The benefits of ADHD
The article about ADHD seems relevant to a situation I found myself in a few days ago (‘It’s like you’ve got no soul’, 11 May). In a waiting room there was a mother, her two-year-old and the mother’s mother. The child had no books or toys to occupy her and unsurprisingly explored the water dispenser and sat on chairs etc. She was admonished by the grandmother who repeatedly tried to strap her into the pushchair with increasing protests from the child. The mother appeared disengaged.
I was able to distract the child with a car magazine and she appeared interested in the pictures. When the grandmother took the child for a walk I was able to converse with the mother who shocked me by saying the child had been diagnosed with ADHD. I tried to reassure her by saying such behaviour was typical of “terrible twos” but that behaviour usually settled. However, she was well acquainted with ADHD details and told me that at two, her child was too young yet to be prescribed Ritalin.
It seemed her child’s ADHD was well mapped out. … Continue reading
It’s the first day of infant school and Louise Levene, aged four, barely numerate, already has a keen eye for fashion…
16 May 2010
My grandmother’s arthritis begins to play up when we are less than halfway to school and she accosts a passing woman who has her own four-year-old in tow. Would they mind awfully? Not a bit. It’s Mary’s first day too and I’m to hold hands with her as we walk. Mary is wearing a charcoal-grey box-pleated Terylene pinafore four sizes too big for her and a Saxe-blue nylon cardigan. Obviously hand-knitted. Cheap. Nasty.
Louise, meanwhile, is a vision of loveliness in a pure-new-wool Buchanan tartan kilt teamed with a bottle-green cashmere twinset. Louise is a right little madam because Louise has grown up in the luxury rag trade.
I didn’t actually know how old I was when I was four. I remember being asked and feeling foolish that I couldn’t answer, but colours I could do. All sorts of colours. Things were never ‘blue’ or ‘pink’ or ‘green’ in our house. They were Sandringham blue, camellia, chartreuse – the colours from the Pringle catalogue. … Continue reading
With the coalition Government in place and the date for an emergency Budget already set, households throughout Britain are scrutinising their own finances to see how they might be affected.
By Rosie Murray-West and Kara Gammell
Published: 6:23AM BST 18 May 2010
3 Excerpts:
Pensioners will benefit from earnings-linked pensions, while higher income families will find themselves stripped of tax credits. Child Trust Funds will be reduced, while those on the state pension will find that their income rises in line with earnings. (continues …)
Accountants have suggested that some families could be more than £2,000 worse off every year after the changes, partly because they receive tax credits to help with the cost of bringing up children that now seem likely to be taken away, and partly from the expected increases to National Insurance, capital gains tax and VAT (Continues…)
… Although his children, including new baby Sophia who arrived six weeks ago, will get the first payment into their Child Trust Funds, it looks unlikely that they will receive a second payment.
“I’m lucky that they have grandparents who help save for them,” he said. Bridget Mead, 74, receives a state pension and claims pension credit. This amounts to around £170 a week. She also receives winter fuel allowance and cold weather payments which helped pay her heating bills this winter. Continue reading
Local authorities too often treat grandparents as free foster care, but a landmark ruling has highlighted this injustice
Sam Smethers guardian.co.uk, Sunday 16 May 2010 12.00 BST
A local authority is about to take a child into care because their parents can no longer care for them. It could place this child with a foster carer, paying them a fostering allowance of at least £146 a week. Or – mindful of the statutory requirements of the Children Act 1989 – it could find a grandparent or other relative who could do this instead. It is probably better for the child to stay within their extended family. After all, that’s what most children want. So at the 11th hour (literally) it calls the grandparent and says: “Will you take this child because otherwise they will have to go into care?” With a proverbial gun to the head, the grandparent agrees. Then what?
What follows is a long, protracted dispute about whether or not the child was a “looked after” child. Did he/she ever become the responsibility of the local authority, or did it just “facilitate” the transfer? The reason for the dispute is that if the local authority can claim it was a “private arrangement”, it doesn’t have to pay the grandparent a penny unless it chooses to, and this is usually at a much lower rate than fostering allowances. … Continue reading
The small body of Godwin Okon bears testimony to his torment. His back is covered in white scars, some from beatings, others from burns made with a cigarette lighter. Similar marks cover the forehead of the shy, seven-year-old boy. His large eyes dart in panic when his T-shirt is gently removed to show his suffering.
Godwin, from the village of Eket, was branded a witch; just one of hundreds of children to be so accused in a Salem-style hunt that has swept this dirt-poor part of southern Nigeria in recent years. “We are living in an area of poverty and ignorance. People have always believed in witches — but until recently it was never directed at children,” Sam Ikpe-Itauma, of the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (Crarn), a British-backed organisation, told The Times.
He said that Godwin’s uncle had locked him and his grandmother in a room with the embalmed body of the boy’s mother after they were accused of using powers of witchcraft to kill her. The grandmother managed to escape and has not been seen since. “He was accused by a local ‘pastor’. They do this in the hope of receiving money for carrying out exorcism ceremonies,” Mr Ikpe-Itauma said. … Continue reading
Grandmother caring for granddaughter, 15, wins right to same pay as foster carer in landmark court decision
By Steve Doughty
Last updated at 11:44 PM on 10th May 2010
A grandmother has won the right to be paid for looking after her granddaughter at the same rate as a foster mother.
A judge ruled that social workers could not pay her less than a foster parent who is not related to the child.
Family lawyers described the ruling, revealed yesterday, as a landmark decision and said it was an important step towards new recognition of the rights of grandparents in the upbringing of their grandchildren.
The grandmother, who for legal reasons can be identified only as GM, took over caring for her 15-year-old granddaughter known as A in December 2004 at the request of Kent County Council social workers.
The council refused to pay GM the same money as a foster carer, even though without the grandmother’s willingness to look after the girl she would have been taken into state care, and would have gone to live either in a children’s home or with a foster family.
At the High Court in London, Mrs Justice Black ruled that A’s history meant that she must be legally regarded as ‘looked after’ by the local authority ‘in terms of financial and other resources’.
That status means the council must pay the grandmother £146.23 per week, the same payment that would go to a foster parent, instead of the £63.56 in benefit support that she is currently receiving. The decision means the grandmother, who is now retired, will receive more than £80 a week more. … Continue reading
C’est la folie: Conversational French is mere child’s play – even if you can’t speak it.
Raising children has much in common with keeping animals. I know that the pleasure I feel in seeing them well-fed and contented – the sheep slowly ruminating over their supper like cowboys chewing tobacco; the chickens splayed in their dust-bath; Jacquelyn the pig, basking in the muddy trench she has dug for herself, as if she were a sausage in gravy – is nothing compared with the pain I feel when they are suffering.
Yet animals, unlike children, exchange their territories with ease. Cat swapped East Dulwich for darkest France with barely a mew of protest. Digby gave up Baltimore. Neither of them has struggled with the language. Perhaps it helps that Cat and Digby have no doting grandparents, concerned that their grandchildren may grow up too French. Or well‑meaning local friends, worried that they are not French enough.
Amélie, three, really should be bilingual by now, say my Jolibois chums. They chuckle at the way she replies to the questions with which they test her. In response, Amélie has now evolved a cunning strategy of always answering to the first two questions posed, and to the third.
“Do you like school?” the Proustian Madeleine asks her one day. “Ah, c’est bien.” Madeleine’s face lights up at the first. “Have you made some nice friends? My best friend is your teacher: do you like her?” Pursing her lips, Madeleine stops asking questions after this. …Continue reading
Despite having outwardly perfect families, jobs and homes, many fortysomething women are in the grip of depression
Anita Chaudhuri
It’s a funny thing about women of a certain age. Never before have there been so many gorgeous, high-achieving ambassadors from the fortysomething frontline, from Michelle Obama to Sam Taylor-Wood. All the more puzzling, then, to consider why so many are experiencing depression, a condition that the columnist Allison Pearson has just admitted she was battling with, dubbing it “the curse of my generation”.
Of course, the forties have never traditionally been an easy life stage, but back in the day you could get away with curling up in bed with a cup of cocoa and a side order of euphemisms — “It’s one of my funny turns/my nerves/my hormones” — and that would give you a free pass to stay in bed for a month. Fat chance of that now, as we’ve got careers, Botox appointments and small children and their grandparents to look after. We have more choices than ever before, and yet somehow this has only brought a certain emptiness. “I see a lot of women in their forties who are suffering from what I’d diagnose as ‘a loss of self,’ ” says the psychologist Shelly Chauhan, who specialises in workplace stress and self-esteem issues. “They’ve tried so hard to achieve in so many different life areas, and in the process they’ve lost their sense of meaning. They’re left asking themselves, ‘Who am I? Where am I going?’ And if they can’t find an obvious answer to that, it can be devastating.”
More than anything, it is this sense of loss that pervades depression, particularly in the current climate. The loss of a marriage, job or parent can trigger feelings of despair, compounded by a wider malaise — loss of the passion to consume as we shop less flamboyantly, and loss of political and economic hope for the future. Chauhan believes that, for many women, another factor is falling out of love with a career, usually around the 10-year mark. “Working mothers make so many sacrifices, and that can lead to an increased sense of guilt and stress. If you lose the excitement of work, then you’re left wondering what is the point of it all.” She also observes that some women who have delayed motherhood until later in life may have built a fantasy in their minds about what parenting is going to be like, and the reality comes as a rude awakening. … Continue reading
Leaving infants to cry may be convenient – but it’s harmful, says 1970s childcare guru Penelope Leach. So are modern parents too selfish? Susie Mesure finds out
Penelope Leach is struggling to feel sympathetic. The scourge of my mother’s generation is at it again: making parents feel bad.
This time it’s the turn of all those manicured mums who owe their frazzle-free existence to the fact that they resorted to controlled crying to get their babies sleeping through the night.
They thought they had it all: great baby, great life, and eight hours of sleep a night – thank you Gina Ford. But that was before Leach, a renowned child development expert, claimed in her new book that leaving your baby to sob could damage its brain.
Not that Leach, an academic with more than four decades of parenting and grandparenting experience under her belt, feels bad. “I can’t see any possibly good reason for having a baby if you don’t want a baby in your life; which is why I’m a little impatient of the, ‘I’m desperate to have a baby and I’ll go through years of fertility treatment, but I don’t want it to change my life.’ Because a) it will, and b) I can’t quite see what’s the point.
We’ve got an awful lot of babies out there,” she says, stating the obvious.
Leach, whose baby-first philosophy is legendary for making parents feel guilty, has always been against leaving babies to cry…Continue reading
We asked our writers to explore an issue they feel passionate about. Child trust funds are under threat.Zoe Williamssays we should maintain the most successful savings initiative launched
Zoe Williams
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 2 May 2010 18.21 BST
My first reaction to the child trust fund was a bad one, based mainly, I admit, on the annoying adverts they’d play as you waited four hours for a midwife’s appointment. It was on a loop with an advert about not smoking while you were pregnant. On a bad day, you could see them both 40 times, and when you came out, all you could think about was what a bad idea the child trust fund was, and how much you wanted a cigarette.
Here’s the problem, as contained in the advert: this fund is worth £250, at birth, topped up with the same amount at seven years old, double that both times for poorer families. A man pirouettes about the screen, saying: “What if your child wanted to be a ballerina? Or put some money towards their first flat? This can help them realise that dream” (I paraphrase somewhat). It was infantile. Putatively addressing parents, it zoomed in on a dream that a 12-year-old girl might have for her offspring, a dream of dance that could in no way be helped by £500 gratis, from the government, whatever kind of investment yield that fetched up. Of course the intention of the fund is that parents and grandparents top up the account to a yearly maximum of £1,200, but if you have the mental age that will be transfixed by a ballerina, you’ll probably be spending any excess cash in Claire’s Accessories. It was patronising. … Continue reading
A 72-year-old grandmother is to have a child with her grandson.
By Roya Nikkhah
Published: 9:30AM BST 01 May 2010
Pearl Carter and Phil BaileyPhoto: New Idea magazine
Pearl Carter and Phil Bailey, 26, have paid a surrogate mother £20,000 to have Mr Bailey’s child, which the couple plan to bring up together.
Mrs Carter, from Indiana, met Mr Bailey four years ago after he tracked her down following the death of his mother, Lynette.
Mrs Carter fell pregnant with Lynette at 18, out of wedlock, and claims that she was forced to give her child up for adoption by her strict Catholic parents.
She went on to marry, but never had any more children.
The couple, who claim to be abused in public and could face prison for incest, say that they fell in love and became lovers soon after meeting.
In an interview with the New Zealand magazine,New Idea, Mrs Carter, said: “I’m not interested in anyone else’s opinion.
“I am in love with Phil and he’s in love with me. Soon I’ll be holding my son or daughter in my arms and Phil will be the proud dad.” … Continue reading
The latest alarming claim from the childcare experts is that leaving babies to cry could damage their brains – but most mothers are simply trying their best to muddle through, says Rosie Murray-West.
By Rosie Murray-West
Published: 12:09PM BST 22 Apr 2010
Other people’s crying babies hardly affect me. So when the first of my own was born nearly three years ago, I was shocked at how her wails could go through me like fingernails scraped down a blackboard. In those first hazy three months I tried every technique from the childcare manuals – rocked her, put her in a fabric sling, balanced her moses basket precariously on top of the washing machine. Often, none of my pathetic attempts would do anything at all. Daisy had a voice that could have been better applied to signalling to ships at sea.
“Put her at the bottom of the garden,” advised my trenchant grandmother, while my mother admitted that doctors suggested she leave my toddling sister to shriek at the other side of her stairgate until she fell asleep. Younger friends (mainly childless ones) quoted similar childcare experts to Ms Leach, who has just published a book saying that children who are left to scream could suffer damage to their developing brains. Like many new mothers, I used everyone’s opinions as sticks to beat myself up, which didn’t help my mental health, or Daisy’s, one little bit. … Continue reading
Comedian Richard Herring is unmarried, addicted to Nintendo and devoid of practical skills. When his parents were the same age, they seemed so much more, well, grown up
Richard Herring
The Guardian, Saturday 24 April 2010
Tell us about the time you kicked Grandad down the stairs,” said Andrew, my youngest nephew.
“Not this again,” groaned my dad. “That never happened.”
“Yes it did,” I protested. And though I had recounted the tale at every family gathering in the last decade, I couldn’t let my expectant audience down.
“I don’t remember quite what precipitated it all, but I was about 14 and me and your grandad were in the lounge, I think I must have sworn at him or been rude to him because he was furious. He was coming at me. He was going to hit me.”
“You were going to physically assault your own teenage son, Keith?” said Sarah, my niece, calling her grandfather by his Christian name, as she was wont to do.
“It was a different time,” I told her. “Parents could beat their children within an inch of their lives back then. In fact, it was pretty much compulsory.”
“I would never have punched any of them … They might have had the odd slap.”
“It was the only physical contact we ever had. We came to see the punchings as acts of affection,” said my sister Jill.
“Don’t say such things,” my mum interjected. “We were very loving parents who hardly ever hit our children.”
“Yes, they were. We were very lucky!” I agreed. “Anyway, I had scarpered out of the room to avoid another pummelling, but he was coming after me, so I ran upstairs … up those very stairs there.” I pointed through the open dining-room door.
“He was hot on my heels and my only hope of saving my skin was to turn round and kick my father, TK Herring, MSc, down half a flight of stairs. His back smacked against the wall …” I clapped my hands loudly to indicate the strength of the impact.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” shouted Dad over the laughter. … Continue reading
Council called to remove junk food in vending machines
Headteachers say this won’t combat the problem
A call to Cardiff Council to remove all junk food from vending machines in Cardiff’s secondary schools was rejected on the grounds it would dent schools’ finances.
The question, made at the meeting of the full council yesterday, asked the executive member for education, Freda Salway, to explain the council’s reasoning behind allowing junk food in Cardiff’s schools – but headteachers say a blanket ban is not the answer.
The Cardiff Central Labour parliamentary candidate Jenny Rathbone put forward a petition signed by local parents and grandparents in her constituency requesting the council to look into removing crisps, sugary drinks and sweets from school vending machines.
She said:
“It is extraordinary that Cardiff Council is still selling junk food in its secondary school vending machines, undermining the good work going on in the classroom and in the dining hall.
“The council needs to think again on this issue. Our petition has received enthusiastic support amongst shoppers and mums and dads enjoying the better weather with their children over the school holiday in our local parks. One visitor from England couldn’t believe that selling junk food in our schools was still going on.” … Continue Reading
