Children
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…
Why most four-year-olds deserve to be sectioned
The first episode of Let Us Entertain You (BBC2, Wednesday) definitely couldn’t be accused of lacking a central thesis. Presenter…
My obsession with litter is bordering on mental illness
It’s no good. I’ve tried to resist it, but I’ve succumbed. I’m now a full-blown litter Nazi. Whenever I leave…
The cruellest month
My August-born toddler is being marked out for failure – thank God the rules are changing
A six-year-old sharpshooter and a New Zealand white – both bound to improve with age
The Honourable Society of Odd Bottles began proceedings with a report on the activities of our junior branch. These youngsters…
The new adventures of the adventure playground
Are adventure playgrounds set to make a comeback, asks Maisie Rowe
Dear Mary: unacceptable behaviour at a book signing
Q. At a recent literary festival I attended a talk with a high-profile octogenarian writer. I had already bought her…
Dear Mary: My husband has shaved his head for a newspaper feature
Q. My partner, a leading political commentator on a national newspaper, recently agreed to shave off his hair at the…
Fatherhood is killing me
Not a day passes when I don’t look on my father’s record with shock and awe. I’m not talking about…
How we drive our children mad
If Britain has a crisis in children’s mental health, it’s easy to see why
I have the right to raise my monsters as I wish
I was on the phone to Girl, thinking of something interesting to tell her. ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘And this…
