Children
My wife has gone back to work – and I’ve turned into a SADDO
When I proposed to Caroline back in 2000, she was a trainee solicitor and I was a freelance journalist. In…
The facts – and fiction – of piracy
Avast there, scurvy dogs! For a nation founded on piracy (the privateer Sir Francis Drake swelled the exchequer by raiding…
Of course the young like socialism – they’re taught to
It beggars belief that Jeremy Corbyn can, with a straight face, announce that capitalism has failed and we’d all be…
It’s not transphobic to question transgenderism
This column is not in my interest. But then, not for the first time. I cannot count the conversations conducted…
The highs – and lows – of learning to fly a kite
I’ve flown only three kites in my life. My stepfather bought me the first. I remember seeing him from a…
Children are everywhere – and they’re spoiling everything
There was a time when middle-class liberals used to complain that the English were a nation of child haters. They…
Who really wants to read feminist children’s books?
A friend of mine who commissions book reviews has added a sub-category to the list of titles coming up: ‘femtrend’,…
Is it any wonder children can’t express themselves when all they have is emojis?
Smiley face. Sad face. Smoochy face. Sick face. Edvard Munch ‘Scream’ face. How are you feeling today? Any of the…
This Hansel and Gretel has ‘classic’ stamped all over it
It’s been a good couple of weeks for cuddly toys in opera. A big floppy Eeyore is the only comfort…
Channel 4 marked women’s suffrage with an episode of the Secret Life of Five-Year-Olds
To mark the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage — if a little oddly — Channel 4 on Tuesday brought us…
Mary solves your problems: What do you say when a screaming child is ruining your lunch?
Q. My wife and I were having lunch in our local bistro. A boy of about two was wandering around…
The kids aren’t all right
Our histrionic parenting is making today’s young people mad, unhappy and fat
The danger of no danger
We all know about helicopter parents and how terrible they can be. In New York, where I live, a mother…
Generation Snowflake: how we train our kids to be censorious cry-babies
We’re training our children to be thin-skinned, censorious and belligerently entitled
The many, many resting places of St Thomas à Becket
A man in full A relic said to contain a fragment of St Thomas à Becket’s elbow arrived from Hungary for…
How baby names got so weird
How Wolf and Skylar pushed out John and Mary
A dispatch from a family of fooshers
I’d like this to have been one of those Spectator diaries that gives the ordinary reader a glimpse into the…
What Hillary Clinton won’t find in Area 51
Area of doubt Hillary Clinton has said that if she is elected she will open files on the US military…
It’s dangerous and wrong to tell all children they’re ‘gender fluid’
Children are not all ‘gender fluid’. It’s dangerous and wrong to try to persuade them that they are
Damon Albarn’s wonder.land will not succeed at the National. It might work in Vegas
Damon Albarn and Rufus Norris present a musical version of Alice in Wonderland. A challenging enterprise even if they’d stuck…
Tis the season for disagreeing with your spouse about everything
The older I get, the more Scrooge-like I become. I’m dyspeptic, misanthropic, curmudgeonly, parsimonious and unsentimental. Caroline, by contrast, is…
Tips from Just William on making a Christmas list
William Brown had the right idea about Christmas lists. Under the heading ‘Things I Want for Christmas’, he requests: a…
Dear Mary: How to stop someone from giving my tiny children expensive clothes that they never wear?
Q. Is there a tactful way to deter certain people from buying clothing for one’s tiny children as Christmas presents?…
How do you explain events that even adults can’t understand to a child?
Seeing my ten-year-old daughter, Freya, a week after the massacre in Paris, I asked her if she had heard anything…
Meet Leo, the youngest member of our household
I’m pleased to announce an addition to the Young household — a ten-week-old Vizsla. For those unfamiliar with this particular breed…
