Family

There have been some rocky relationships in the news this year. As well as Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s conscious uncoupling, world leaders have also had problems. Vladimir Putin’s divorce has just been finalised, and the newly single Francois Hollande this week welcomed his ex-girlfriend Segolene Royal to the French cabinet. So, first of all some advice from a 1951 Spectator, about how to be happily married. Hugh Lyon, then chairman of the National Marriage Guidance Council, was rather strict: ‘The real trouble about people who want to be happily married is that they don’t start soon enough. It is not just a matter of taking thought before getting engaged,

What a fantastically stupid idea, I thought, reading the paper this morning.  ‘Parents who fail to show love and affection towards their children could be sent to prison for up to 10 years under a “Cinderella Law” to be announced in the Queen’s Speech in June, according to a report.  ‘The move will make “emotional cruelty” a criminal offence for the first time. The decision was hailed as a “monumental step” forwards by a children’s charity, which said children could grow up with “lifelong mental health problems” or end up taking their own lives.’ The law would make it a criminal offence for any parent to impair a child’s ‘physical,

The American-led Left has a new fixation: ‘benevolent sexism’. Recent examples found here, here and here. According to one definition: ‘Ambivalent or benevolent sexism usually originates in an idealization of traditional gender roles: Women are “naturally” more kind, emotional, and compassionate, while men are “naturally” more rational, less emotional, and “tougher,” mentally and physically.’ I don’t want to say anything that could get me arrested in Belgium, but men are on average physically tougher than women. And I would have thought that stating women have – on average – greater empathy is was not likely to get you an auto-da-fé. I imagine that ‘benevolent sexism’ is enduringly popular because people quite

When I told a friend that my nine-year-old son was staying with his grandparents for the whole week of the half-term, she said: ‘A whole week! My son would be lucky to get his grandparents for a weekend! Who are these people?’ ‘His grandparents are working class,’ I said. She looked puzzled. ‘What?’ I explained. ‘Working-class grandparents are the best you can have — these days middle-class grandparents are bloody useless.’ I’m not alone in thinking this about the middle-class grandparent (MCGP). Just ask any middle-class parent about their children’s grandparents and out pours the same litany of complaints: ‘They’re too busy’, ‘They’re too selfish’, ‘They’re not really interested in

Do your children have a bleak and nihilistic view of the world? It’s hard to tell, really, when they spend 30 per cent of the day blamming away at those whores in Grand Theft Auto and the remaining 70 per cent asleep. How should one go about inquiring such a thing? Text them, maybe. ‘R U blk n nlstc lol? — Dad’. But they might well lie in response: ‘OMG no! (followed by five smiley emoticons)’. I have to say I’d be a little disappointed if they were not bleak and nihilistic, seeing how things are. One usually finds with relentlessly upbeat and chirpy children that they are receiving additional

A friend of mine, quite a distinguished lawyer, takes the view that marriage ceased to make sense after no-fault divorces came in. What, he says sternly, is the point of a contract when there’s no sanction if you break it? Well, quite. But if no-fault divorce pretty well invalidates marriage after the event, prenups do quite a good job of undermining it beforehand. The point of marriage is that it’s meant to be a lifetime affair – the hint being in the ‘til death do us part’ bit – and the point of prenups is that they make provision for the thing ending before it even gets underway. You’re putting

You know, when the pope went on in his recent encyclical about how the family ‘is experiencing a profound cultural crisis’ he wasn’t half right. His reflection that ‘the individualism of our postmodern and globalized era favours a lifestyle which … distorts family bonds’ came to mind when I got this very special Valentine’s press release from a money saving website. It’s offering your cheapest ever divorce for £36, so long as you apply today. I always thought, myself, that no fault divorce was a really bad idea in undermining the contractual character of marriage, but I never thought that the commodification of the end of marriage – cheapening the bond in every sense – would follow it quite

My grandmother, Nanny Nancy, is 99 and going strong. But it can’t be denied that while she’s all there mentally, physically she’s not the lithe young thing she was in her 1920s adolescence. I mean no disrespect to my beloved grandmother, but if we’re honest, when Michael Bay is casting his next blockbuster and it’s a choice between her and Megan Fox for the female lead, well… . It’s not just me who has noticed this: the kids have even more so. When they were younger, especially, and I asked them to kiss their great-grandmother they’d react — as so many children do when confronting their older relatives’ decrepitude — as

It’s about this time of year – the darkest days of winter – when we traditionally get those newspaper articles lamenting the amount we consume over Christmas and how it’s all grossly commercial, which is bad because some kids go hungry; followed by the Thought for the Day piece about how we should all embrace poverty, which is what the Christian message is really about, rather than stuffing our fat faces and spending loads of money we don’t have. But to me what’s special about Christmas is that my children really enjoy being given presents, including the ones from Fr Christmas, now a sort of grandfather-god of consumerism. They’re still