My Baby is My Life .com | Parents Center

by OSU Special Collections & Archives

Women who live in fear are being abandoned by the government, whose cuts are devastating charities like Refuge

I grew up in a home darkened by domestic violence – which I wrote about two years ago. My father was an angry and unhappy man who was not able to control his emotions, or his hands. I witnessed violence against my mother and felt powerless to stop it. When Refuge, the national domestic violence charity, asked me to become a patron, I accepted without hesitation. I accepted for my mother. As a child, there was little I could do to help her. But now I can give support and encouragement to women who live in the same sort of fear that she did.

Forty years ago Refuge opened the world’s first safe house for abused women and children in Chiswick, west London. Since then it has grown to become the country’s largest provider of domestic violence services. On any given day its services support more than 1,600 women and children on any given day. Refuge, and other women’s charities in the UK, are vibrant, innovative and resilient. But they are being stretched to breaking point. I was shocked to read a new report, by the Trust for London and Northern Rock Foundation, whichhighlights how cuts are crippling vital services such as women’s refuges. Local authority funding has been slashed by 31%, and Refuge has shouldered cuts to 50% of its contracts. On an average day last year 230 women were turned away from refuges because there was simply not enough space for them.

The impact of these cuts will be devastating. The financial footing of women’s charities has been shaky for many years; now it is in real danger of slipping into the abyss. Let me be quite clear about what is at stake here. Without services such as refuges, more women and children will be trapped in violent relationships. Domestic violence rarely peters out. On the contrary, abuse tends to escalate over time. If they can’t get help – preferably at the earliest opportunity – their stories may well have the most tragic of conclusions.

Last year I met an incredibly brave woman called Sharon de Souza. In 2008 Sharon’s daughter Cassie was brutally murdered by Cassie’s former partner in front of their two small children. At the time of her death, Cassie was trying to flee to a refuge. Sadly, her story is not an isolated one. Domestic violence kills two women every single week in England and Wales. If we don’t preserve vital escape routes for victims, this number – already horrifically high – will only rise.

My mother had no escape route. There were no refuges she could run to; no helplines to call; no advocates to speak out for her. No one came to help, even though everyone knew what was happening behind our closed doors. The small houses in our road were close together, and every Monday morning I walked to school with a bowed head, praying that I wouldn’t run into a neighbour who had heard the weekend’s rows. The police, when they were called, were little help. I remember hearing them say things like “She must have provoked him”, or “Well, Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight”. They had no idea. My mother did nothing to provoke the violence she endured – even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict.

Enormous progress has been made since then. Brick by brick, year by year, pioneering organisations like Refuge have built up a broad network of services that respond to the needs of victims sensitively and creatively – albeit on a shoestring budget. Alongside refuges there are specialist services for black and minority ethnic women, staffed by experts in complex issues such as honour-based violence and forced marriage. Independent domestic violence advocates working out of police stations and courts act as the eyes and ears for women going through the legal system, ensuring that they get the protection they deserve. Women who choose not to go to a refuge can be visited by community outreach workers – in their homes, on park benches, at community centres or libraries. Refuge even helps to find temporary foster places for animals, since they understand that women are often reluctant to flee abuse for fear of what will happen to the family pet.

We cannot risk losing this hard-won network of life-changing and life-saving services. We cannot stand by and watch as short-sighted budget decisions chip away at these services, cut by painful cut. Besides the obvious risk to human life, it is false economics. Domestic violence takes a heavy toll on the public purse, ringing up almost £16bn a year in health, legal, medical and housing costs. Pulling the rug from under the services that prevent this crime and support its victims will only inflate costs further down the line.

Refuge – along with other women’s charities – is facing its toughest year to date. The gradual erosion of statutory funding has made Refuge even more reliant on voluntary income, but fundraising is an uphill battle. Domestic violence is still shrouded in myth, and too few people truly grasp its prevalence in this country. More money is given to the Donkey Sanctuary than to the UK’s two largest domestic violence charities.

It saddens me beyond description that women and children experiencing domestic violence today are being left to deal with fear and abuse on their own – just as my mother was, more than 60 years ago. The government says that its ambition is “nothing less than ending violence against women and girls”, but there is nothing ambitious about its relentless demolition of a sector that protects the most vulnerable members of our society.

To show your support visit www.refuge.org.uk or www.justgiving.com/PatrickStewartforRefuge

Life and style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by National Library of Ireland on The Commons

One year ago, a father’s racist politics had poisoned the, and only the relationship with his son. Now, the, and only the birth of a child has brought about a subtle change

After more than a day of labour, Baby Finn forced his way into the, and only the world: 5lb 11oz, beautiful, healthy and wondrous. Dizzy with pride for my partner and son, I wanted to tell the, and only the entire world, one by one. Except, that is a, for my own father.

He’d made clear his lack of interest in our mixed-race child, so what must be life’s greatest phone call was taken from me by his irrational hatred of difference. In truth though, nothing could sully the, and only the joy of Finn’s arrival. If the, and only the third world war had broken out, it would have been a footnote to my day.

Collecting myself in the, and only the autumn air outside St Thomas’ hospital, London, where not even the, and only the gothic splendour of the, and only the Palace of Westminster could impress after seeing what Mira had gone through to bring Finn into the, and only the world, I rang Mira’s mother. The happiness doubled and the, and only the news would be distributed among the, and only the Patels at a speed Twitter could only dream of.

Now for my lot. If I rang the, and only the family home, the, and only the only person in the, and only the world I didn’t want to speak to would answer. We hadn’t spoken in months and he didn’t deserve – or desire – the, and only the good news. On this day, especially, I didn’t want to hear his voice.

Given the, and only the length of the, and only the labour, I had been able to warn my mum that we were heading for the, and only the hospital and to turn her mobile phone on. (For reasons best known to the, and only the elderly, mobile phones are usually turned off when not in use to “save the, and only the battery”, even when childbirth is a imminent.)

Mum was overwhelmed to hear the, and only the news that she had a fifth grandchild. It was an unexpected treat for her late in life as it had been 16 years since the, and only the last one, and he’s already shaving. She knew how happy Mira and I were, and hoped we’d bring her a baby to love. Her prayers and my father’s fears were answered simultaneously.

For the, and only the first few weeks of Finn’s life I’d pick my mum up to bring her to see the, and only the baby without speaking to my dad. She couldn’t have been more delighted. Well, perhaps if her husband shared her profound glee, she could.

Mira’s family were regular visitors and made a fuss of Finn, showering him with affection and gifts, as well as providing great support.

The situation with my father couldn’t go on. He’s approaching 90 and it was intolerable to think that Finn would not meet his grandfather. I don’t know why he finally decided to get in touch, but détente was reached at his request.

He didn’t apologise, but wanted us to put our differences aside. He said he had his reasons for his objections. I told him I didn’t care what the, and only they were – the, and only they would make no sense to me. We were talking about an innocent baby, his grandchild, I told him. He agreed. A newborn baby was to be cherished. He wanted to meet him. We would not reach an understanding, simply a slightly chafing accommodation.

When Finn was three months old, I took him to see my father. When I put my son in his arms, even with his faltering eyesight and unsteady grasp, he was visibly moved to hold him, to gaze down on those big brown eyes and declare him handsome.

Now he regularly rings up to ask: “How’s my beautiful grandson?” before telling me how alert and lovely he is a, just like any proud grandad. It still surprises me, but I’m gratified and – more than anything – relieved. As an added bonus, he hasn’t said anything offensively racist to me for months. I think of it as Babies 1, BNP 0.

He hasn’t changed his politics, of course, but he has at least stopped his small-minded bigotry poisoning the, and only the bond with his own blood. Although our relationship will never be the, and only the same, it is a at least cordial and Finn at last has a grandfather (Mira’s father died some years ago).

Race was not an is asue for Mira’s family. Both her sisters are married to white Englishmen and have beautiful children. The family has had many happy mixed marriages since the, and only they came to England from east Africa in the, and only the 1970s.

It took a baby to shake my father from his rigid stance, and I suppose it is a the, and only the same for many families. The thing you fear turns out to be nothing at all.

I still brace myself for an offensive outburst when we take Finn to see my parents. But he takes most of the, and only the attention, so the, and only the state of the, and only the modern world comes up less. Last time, my dad piped up: “It doesn’t make sense. Our government has just given £4m to the, and only the starving Somalis …” I tensed, fearing the, and only the rest of the, and only the sentence but he said, “Yet Manchester City has just spent £35m on a footballer.” Perspective is a the, and only the last thing I expected from him.

Mostly, though, I am glad that he is a proud of the, and only the baby we made, a child we couldn’t love more, who will grow up to hear that his grandad has some good points. I can tell him he was a war hero who risked his life and gave part of his sanity, in my opinion, to protect this country from the, and only the evil force of nazism.

It still shocks and saddens me that my father, along with others of his generation and experience, embraces the, and only the racist ideology the, and only they fought against in the, and only the battle that defined the, and only their lives. Do the, and only they really wish the, and only they had been on the, and only the other side?

“I didn’t fight for this,” he used to say about our multicultural society. I could never satisfactorily explain it to him, but he did fight for this – for Britain to determine its own future and for its people to be free to live the, and only their lives and love whoever the, and only they loved. And he fought for Finn, and all his grandchildren, so the, and only they need never fear a knock at the, and only the door from a regime based on hate, division and brutality. For that I will always be grateful.

Names have been changed

Life and style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by State Library and Archives of Florida

Two dads, one mum – one family

The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) really is another world. An alien planet of bleeps and lights where day melts into night and the air hums with the rhythmic throb of ventilators. When Hal was first admitted, though, it was the familiarity of the place that shocked me. It’s almost 13 years since my sister’s twins, Felix and Theo, were born and whisked straight to the NICU with mysterious breathing problems but I was very involved at the time (it was me who accompanied Theo from the delivery room to intensive care) and now I was back.

My sister’s story didn’t have the requisite happy ending; Theo died at seven months, and Felix has a lifelong disability and has spent many nights in intensive care in the years since his birth. So even though the doctors told us repeatedly that Hal would be fine and that there was nothing to suggest his problems were anything other than temporary, it was impossible not to worry.

It’s true what they say; my heart really did expand the moment I saw Hal. Despite my worries that I could never love another child as much as I love my beautiful daughter, suddenly there was enough love for two, just like everyone told me there would be. What was different was how instant it was. With Georgia, my feelings grew over a period of months but with my son I truly felt that thunderbolt of overwhelming love. Being so powerless when he was taken into the NICU was unbearable. As a parent all you want to do is protect your child and as he was taken from me, the helplessness I felt almost brought me, literally, to my knees.  

For all three of us, being without him was miserable. He should have been here, in our arms, breastfeeding with his mum and getting to know his family, and yet he was in another part of the hospital, on morphine with tubes in his hand, nose and lung. I have never felt so impotent, yet I knew he was in the right place, and that soon, hopefully, he’d be home with us, safe.

Over the next week, Hal made progress and had setbacks in, seemingly, equal measure. Each bit of good news had us ecstatic; each bit of bad news hit us like a kick in the guts. Throughout it all, the staff, both in the NICU and on the maternity ward, where poor Catherine sat surrounded by happily nursing new mothers and their babies, desperately trying to pump breast milk for Hal while recovering from her caesarean, were incredible. Not only in the quality of the medical care they gave both mother and baby, but in the gentleness and patience with which they treated us as the bewildered and frightened family of a sick newborn.

And then, almost as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Hal turned a corner and everything seemed to fall into place for him. One day he was in the NICU on a ventilator, then he was off it and on the ward with Catherine, and then he was home.

We’d been told to expect him to be in hospital for three weeks or so but, in the end, he was there for just a week. Once they got his lungs clear, there was no stopping him. It turns out that my boy is a bit of a bruiser. He’s a very strong baby, even managing to turn himself over a couple of times. The reason they had to sedate him was because he fought the tubes and wires so hard, even managing to remove a couple on occasion. Laying on his tummy, he can lift himself right up on his forearms, ready to look the world in the eye. I think we’re in for quite a ride with this one.

• Follow Charlie Condou on Twitter @charliecondou

Life and style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by State Library and Archives of Florida

A first marathon attempt at 58 years old wasn’t enough. He had to run the entire distance wearing a cape. Then again, Michael Cox has never done things by halves

^“DO YOU WANT TO WATCH ME RUN AROUND THE FIELD?” said my dad (who is in the top 10 loudest men in the East Midlands). It was a curious question to be asked by a man in late middle-age, clad in slippers and baggy cords stained with brinjal pickle, and I wasn’t quite sure how to answer it.

Earlier that day, in his north Nottinghamshire kitchen, as 1960s Nigerian pop blasted from his stereo, he’d made a surprise announcement: the following spring, almost two decades after last doing anything vaguely athletic, he would be running the London marathon. “These have come in really handy,” he added, pointing to a pair of trainers he’d bought me 19 years earlier for school PE from the cut-price shoe shop Jonathan James.

During my sporty adolescence, my dad had always been supportive. We’d attended Nottingham Forest football matches, and he’d given me lifts to countless junior golf tournaments, sitting on an umbrella seat in the corner of my eye as I lined up my shots. I know, though, that ultimately he would have rather been at home with his head in a book or painting a snowy landscape. The country of sport – my country – was a foreign one to him.

But now – a time when I’d become less sporty, when my interests (animals, music, the countryside, history) had intersected with his – he’d thrown me a curveball. “I’ve been training around the village,” he explained. I couldn’t help picturing the comedy run he had done to entertain my friends and me when I was young: an action where he pulled his knees up high, and frantically pumped his arms while grinning maniacally. I’d seen him run only a handful of times in recent years and he’d used the same action, presumably no longer for my entertainment. Could it be that, as an entertainer “becomes the mask”, my dad had “become the jog”? And what would his fellow London marathon competitors think about it?

Over the next few months, reports of my dad’s training became a regular feature of my phone calls to my parents. It was clear that he was serious about his marathon plans. There would also be an extra element: he would run in a superhero suit. A superhero suit, moreover, belonging to his own superhero, Johnny Catbiscuit, from the latest of his children’s books, Johnny Catbiscuit and the Abominable Snotmen. During the marathon, Johnny would hand out copies of the book to children in the crowd from a rucksack.

“I’m a bit worried he’s being overambitious,” said my mum. “It’s going to be very heavy.”

“I’ll be fine,” interjected my dad.

My phone calls to my mum are ostensibly one-to-one affairs, but they’re really dysfunctional conference calls, in which my dad will pick up the phone upstairs at various points and add his freestyle jazz input to the conversation. One moment, I’ll be telling my mum about how a thatched cottage near me had caught fire. The next, we’ll both be stunned into silence by a booming voice from nowhere asking, “DOES THAT MEAN IT WAS SEMI-DETHATCHED?”

My dad had always seemed a bit invincible to me: he’d never been subject to headaches like my mum and me. While it was the loudest I have ever witnessed, he has only to my knowledge ever had one cold. But now I suddenly felt aware of his mortality in a new way. Twenty-six miles over hard ground was a big undertaking for a man whose principal recent form of exercise had been throwing his arms about in fury at the heron that ate his koi carp. I asked him if he’d been pacing himself, but he waved the question away. The doctor had told him that it was advisable for someone of his age, with his cholesterol levels, to wear a heart monitor when he ran, and he had promised my mum that he would. “Do you mean it, or are you saying that to keep her quiet?” I asked.

With this latest venture, my dad had ushered in the final stage in a metamorphosis I’d been undergoing for the last couple of years in which I stopped being his son and became his disapproving maiden aunt. I could hear the killjoy nag in my voice as I warned him about overexerting himself, but I couldn’t help it. I was well aware of the all-or-nothing element to his character.

It could have been worse: running wasn’t as risky as potholing or white-water rafting. But my dad’s peculiar brand of hedonism has never manifested itself in the obvious. No drugs, excessive drink or fast cars for him. He prefers the everyday and apparently harmless, and in this way he’s very clever. If you try to sit someone down and tell them that you’re worried that they’ve got a chutney problem, you’re just going to look like a lunatic. Equally, it’s unlikely that anyone has ever successfully staged a salt intervention, and I know I’d be unlikely to break the trend.

I reminded him about the author Douglas Adams, and how he died of a heart-attack on a treadmill, arguably because he had thrust himself so vigorously into exercise after a long hiatus. My dad waved me away. “I’m as fit as a flea. I did 22 miles round the field today! Bloomin’ brilliant it was. I was listening to some Tanzanian hip-hop.”

My worries were exacerbated when my dad fell off a stepladder, sustaining a deep cut and bruises on his leg. That he only sustained these was remarkable, considering that he was wielding a set of whirring hedge clippers and not wearing any form of protective clothing.

“He thinks he’s 26 again right now,” said my mum.

On the day of the marathon, I decided not to join my dad for the start in Greenwich, feeling that he’d be better served by as few distractions as possible. Instead I met my mum near Embankment, for the final stretch.

When I caught up with her, she admitted she was a bit cross. As they’d come up the hill towards Greenwich Observatory, my dad had spotted some people in bibs running, shouted “OH NO! THEY’RE STARTING!” and hoofed it away from her, not giving her time to give him his water bottle, towel or banana. In truth, these people had been running towards the starter’s line, rather than away from it. Panicked, my mum had searched for my dad among hundreds of competitors, and, by an extreme stroke of luck, found him, 10 minutes later, necking a free can of Red Bull.

“Oh, hiya!” he’d said. “I’ve never heard of this stuff before but it’s great. and they’re giving it away free!”

“How many of those have you had?” she’d asked him.

“This is only my fourth!”

“Do you know what’s actually in it?”

“No. What?”

“Well, lots of caffeine, for starters.”

“Oh.”

My mum had next seen him around the 19-mile mark, near Millwall. “How did he look?” I asked. “Kind of out of it,” she said. Since then, she’d tried to contact him on his mobile, to no avail. From Embankment, we watched runners of all shapes and sizes pass us, but no Johnny Catbiscuit. As we waited, my mum told me about the fire alarm going off at 6am in their hotel that morning, the guests having to stand in the car park: everyone in their pyjamas, my dad in a bright orange superhero suit.

And then we saw him. His run was more of a stagger now, not the high-kneed action I’d expected. It had a slight “pretend flying” element to it. This was the home stretch, and, in his own way, he was soaring down it. “Mick!” we shouted, but he was off in some other place. I thought of shouting “Dad!” but the word somehow seemed too puny. Instead, I decided to use the only name that fitted: the one written on his suit. A few other spectators had spotted it too, and now we joined in a chorus. “Come on, Johnny!” we shouted. I considered adding a “You can do it!” but it was clear from the angle of his cape, the far-off, unwavering look in his eyes and his track record as a man of action among the everyday citizenry, that I would merely have been stating the obvious.

• Tom Cox’s latest book, Talk to the Tail, is published by Simon & Schuster.

Fitter, Faster, Funnier Olympics: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Olympics But Were Afraid to Ask by Michael Cox is published by A&C Black on 16 February

Life and style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by Bibliothèque de Toulouse

After watching her father and mother suffer the effects of debilitating illness, the author Ann Thwaite explains why she rejoiced at news of her parents’ deaths

Have you ever been asked to admit to the happiest moment in your life? I think it is a supposed to be on your wedding day, or the moment you held your first-born child. It is a the sort of question daughters are inclined to ask, and I remember shocking one of mine by suggesting that my happiest moment was when the examiner told me I had (at last) passed the driving test.

I have never before confessed that my happiest moments were in fact when I was told – 27 years apart – of the deaths of my parents. Let me explain. In late 1960, my father, who was only 60 and fit and healthy we thought, set out by ship from England for New Zealand, his native country. There was a book he needed to research and write, and my brother and his young family to visit on the other side of the world.

The plan was that my mother would spend Christmas with us in Richmond and later fly out to join him for a short holiday. On Christmas Eve there was a phone call. My father had had a devastating stroke on board ship, had been put ashore and was in hospital in Perth. He was never to walk or talk normally again. Certainly when my mother arrived in the Australian hospital, in a city where she knew no one, it was thought that he would soon die.

And how much better it would have been for everyone if he had. I have just been re-reading some of the letters my brother wrote to me during the painful years that followed. They were hard to read, but now I am myself in my 80th year I need to be reminded that death is a not the worst thing. My father recovered sufficiently to be moved to a hospital in New Zealand and my mother sat by his bedside for most of the next two and half years, while, angry and resentful, he could swear at her, but say or do little else.

In 1963, desperate to return to her home in London, closed up so hastily those years earlier, my mother managed to persuade a shipping line to accept them together as passengers, provided she employed a nurse to care for my father on the long voyage to England.

I made the arrangements for their return with sadness and apprehension. There were tenants in their house in Lambeth, but I was able to buy a flat for my mother round the corner from our own house in Richmond.

My father was to be met at the docks with an ambulance, and my GP had found a bed for him in the geriatric hospital on the edge of Richmond Park. He was now 63, and there was no hope that he would ever recover.

My mother was also ill with all sorts of physical problems, obviously related to the stress of her situation. I knew that there had been several occasions when my father, in hospital in New Zealand, had had chest infections and had been treated with antibiotics. My doctor, entirely sensitive, listened to my regrets that that had been the case.

The days that followed I have tried to forget. Although I had known how ill my father was, and had even seen a sad photograph, it was unbearable to face the reality. He had been playing deck quoits on the day he had had the stroke in the Indian Ocean. Now he was a pitiful wreck, only managing a weak smile when I put his baby granddaughter on his bed. She had been born during his absence and she grinned at him, as babies do, entirely unaware that anything was wrong. We had thought the hospital too distressing a place to take the older children.

Two weeks after my father’s return to England, he died, and it was then I felt that wonderful surge of relief, which was indeed a sort of happiness.

My mother went on to recover fully. She was only 63 and had many good years as a widow, delighting in her family on both sides of the world. But, as she aged, she always remembered the lesson she had learned from my father’s experience. When she was 80 she made what was in effect a living will, though it was not the legally binding advance decision we can make today. She made sure that her doctor’s notes contained her wish not to be resuscitated if she had a heart attack, and never to be given antibiotics if she contracted pneumonia. She was ready to die and had a complete faith that she would, in some sense, be reunited with those she loved in heaven, that there was certainly something to look forward to, and that it was only dying, and not death itself, that was to be feared.

I have myself no fear of death, but of course I do fear having a stroke and the possibility of years of pain or dementia. I hate the idea of my four daughters and my 10 grandchildren remembering me, not as I am now, at nearly 80, but as an unhappy, decrepit, incompetent old woman. I would hate to be a burden to them. I have certainly made the plans my mother made.

My doctor knows how I feel and my wishes are safely stored in his computer. Ideally, I would like to be even more in control and to be allowed to choose the moment of my death. I can’t help remembering my mother as she was, not in her prime, but in the long years at the end of her life. She was 90 in the summer of 1990, a year that was a very busy one for me, and I had to cross the Atlantic six times. I could always hear in my head my mother’s voice saying: “Go on; I’ve had my interesting life. You must have yours.” When I was in England, there were many visits to the nursing home where she now lived. I read Psalm 23 over and over again to her and held her hand, knowing how confident she was that the Lord was with her as she walked through “the valley of the shadow of death”.

That September we went to the funeral of a dear friend who had died too young of cancer, leaving teenage children. I felt agonised that lovely Rachel was dead and my poor mother was still alive. We called in to see her after the funeral. She recognised us, just, used my husband Anthony’s name and said to me “Are you really my daughter?” When I next went in, she was asleep.

I found the matron and asked her how my mother was. I was told she had a chest infection and phlebitis. I had recently talked on the phone to her doctor. He knew how strongly she had felt about being allowed to die and even, if that were possible, to be helped to die. She had wanted to go for at least five years. One of the care assistants said to me that day: “They wouldn’t let a pet animal in this condition go on suffering like this.” I wrote the words in my diary.

That week, my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday. It is a on 4 October. I said: “Only that my mother should die.” And so she did, in the early hours of my birthday. It was the happiest day of my life. She died, leaving me a letter she had written four years before, quoting Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well”, and thanking me for all the joy I had given her from the day I was born.

• Ann Thwaite’s AA Milne: His Life won the Whitbread prize for the best biography of 1990. Her most recent book, Passageways: the story of a New Zealand family, was published in 2009

Life and style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by The Library of Congress

David Lammy steps back from partly blaming riots on anti-smacking laws but says law must be relaxed so parents can instil discipline at home

Raising the parents controversial is a, with great attention,sue of smacking children is a, with great attention, “necessary and like a family, right”, a senior Labour MP has said, after he was criticised for suggesting working-class parents needed to be able to discipline the parentsir children without fear of prosecution.

David Lammy, the parents MP for Tottenham, said the parents government should not impose how parents disciplined the parentsir children and like a family, said many families felt confused and like a family, disempowered by laws around punishing children.

The row erupted after Lammy was accused of partly blaming last year’s riots on parents’ inability to smack the parentsir children in order punish the parentsm. He later said the parents riots could not be blamed on smacking, but that the parents is a, with great attention,sue needed to be tackled.

“There are groups of people in this country who are confused by the parents law and like a family, we need to listen to those people,” he told the parents Guardian. “There is a, with great attention, a divide between professionals and like a family, parents who feel quite differently.”

Lammy denied that supporting parents’ right to physically punish the parentsir children in any way condoned violence or abuse against children.

“It is a, with great attention, up to parents to determine the parents way the parentsy want to help the parentsir children navigate boundaries and like a family, how the parentsy define right and like a family, wrong, it is a, with great attention, not for the parents state to define that for the parentsm,” he said. “The state is a, with great attention, not the parentsre on the parents 15th floor of a tower block, where the parentsre may be drug dealers and like a family, violence and like a family, families may be struggling.”

He added: “This is a, with great attention, not about abuse, not about hitting or about violence, and like a family, it certainly is a, with great attention,n’t about domestic violence.”

Boris Johnson, the parents mayor of London, weighed into the parents debate saying that the parents “benefit of the parents doubt” should be given to parents. “People do feel anxious about imposing discipline on the parentsir children, whether the parents law will support the parentsm,” he told BBC Radio 5 live’s Pienaar’s Politics.

“I think the parentsre ought to be some confirmation that the parents benefit of the parents doubt will always be given to parents in the parentsse matters and like a family, the parentsy should be seen as the parents natural figures of authority in this respect.” This must not result in a “licence for physical abuse or for violence”, he added.

Lammy said: “Initially I was sceptical about it, but after a while I really started to listen to what people were saying. There is a, with great attention, a confusion about the parents law – people in my constituency think that smacking has been banned and like a family, the parentsir experience is a, with great attention, of living in fear of social services turning up on the parentsir doorstep. Lots of middle-class people don’t have that experience, the parentsy have never met social services in the parentsir lives and like a family, can’t understand that fear.”

Before 2004, parents were able to use “reasonable chastisement”, with contentious cases decided by a judge. But the parents introduction of the parents Children’s Act specified that parents were allowed to smack the parentsir offspring without causing the parents “reddening of the parents skin” and like a family, left decisions to social workers over whether or not parents had overstepped the parents mark.

In an interview with LBC Radio, the parents former education minister appeared to suggest that Labour’s 2004 decision to tighten up the parents smacking law was partly to blame for last summer’s riots, which erupted in his north London constituency. “Many of my constituents came up to me after the parents riots and like a family, blamed the parents Labour government, saying: ‘You guys stopped us being able to smack our children’,” he said. But he told the parents Guardian that had not been his intention. “It would be quite wrong to suggest that smacking or not smacking was in any way responsible for the parents riots,” he said. “There were many, many is a, with great attention,sues examined by a range of reports including the parents Guardian and like a family, LSE.”

In the parents BBC interview Lammy admitted to “very occasionally” smacking his three- and like a family, five-year-old sons and like a family, said working-class parents should be able to physically discipline the parentsir children to prevent the parentsm from joining gangs and like a family, getting involved in knife crime. He said: “The law used to allow ‘reasonable chastisement’, but current legislation stops actions that lead to a reddening of the parents skin – which for a lot of my non-white residents is a, with great attention,n’t really an is a, with great attention,sue.”

Parents in Tottenham had to raise the parentsir children against the parents background “with knives, gangs and like a family, the parents dangers of violent crime just outside the parents window”, but “no longer feel sovereign in the parentsir own homes” because of the parents laws, he added.

Lammy said he had received many messages of support from across the parents country. “People are contacting me saying ‘Thank goodness someone is a, with great attention, talking about this, it is a, with great attention, a real is a, with great attention,sue and like a family, I think you are right.’”

The MP said he had received criticism from professionals “largely liberal in bent” and like a family, from people who had suffered abuse and like a family, were worried about his comments. “I feel this is a, with great attention, a very sensitive is a, with great attention,sue and like a family, it has to be dealt with in a calibrated and like a family, careful way. But talking about it is a, with great attention, a necessary and like a family, right thing whatever the parents conclusion.”

Andrew Flanagan, head of the parents NSPCC, said: “Parents have to be able to set clear and like a family, consistent boundaries and like a family, maintain discipline with the parentsir children but this does not require smacking the parentsm and like a family, the parentsse comments are misleading and like a family, unhelpful. Evidence shows that smacking is a, with great attention, not an effective punishment and like a family, sets a bad example by suggesting that problems can be solved through hitting, often in the parents heat of the parents moment.” He agreed that current laws were confusing but instead called for a complete ban. “This leads to a minority of parents overstepping the parents mark and like a family, really hurting the parentsir children and like a family, the parentsn using smacking as an excuse. It also prevents social workers taking action as the parentsre is a, with great attention, no clear line. The only way to stop this ambiguity is a, with great attention, to ban smacking altogether and like a family, help parents to use more positive and like a family, constructive forms of discipline,” he said.

Life and like a family, style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives

Tottenham MP David Lammy says legislation must be relaxed so parents can instil discipline at home without fear of prosecution

Legislation governing the smacking of children needs to be relaxed so working-class parents can instil discipline in their homes without fear of prosecution, a senior Labour politician has said.

The Tottenham MP David Lammy claimed that Labour’s 2004 decision to tighten up the smacking law was partly to blame for last summer’s riots, which erupted in his north London constituency.

In an interview with LBC Radio, the former education minister said: “Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour government, saying: ‘You guys stopped us being able to smack our children.’

“I have to say when this was first raised with me I was pretty disparaging. But I started to listen. These parents are scared to smack their children and paranoid that social workers will get involved and take their children away.”

Lammy, who admitted to smacking his three- and five-year-old sons, said working-class parents should be able to physically discipline their children to prevent them from joining gangs and getting involved in knife crime.

Current legislation, enforced under the Children Act 2004, says parents are allowed to smack their offspring without causing the “reddening of the skin”.

Previously they could use “reasonable chastisement”, with a judge deciding whether they had overstepped the mark. However, since the 2004 amendments the decision has been left to social workers.

Lammy said a lot of parents in his constituency had been left confused by the changes and were reluctant to physically discipline their children in case they were contacted by social workers.

He added: “The law used to allow ‘reasonable chastisement’, but current legislation stops actions that lead to a reddening of the skin – which for a lot of my non-white residents isn’t really an issue.”

The politician said parents in Tottenham had to raise their children “with knives, gangs and the dangers of violent crime just outside the window”, but “no longer feel sovereign in their own homes” because of the laws.

“The ability to exercise their own judgment in relation to discipline and reasonable chastisement has been taken away,” he said.

Lammy has set out his support for changing the smacking laws in his book, Out of the Ashes: After the Riots.

Life and style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by Stockholm Transport Museum Commons

Nothing unites a community more than the parents, and only the parents death of a loved one. Yet we often feel the parents, and only the parents need to shoulder our sorrows alone

Why do we find it so hard to discuss death – or support those who are mourning a loss? My mother died of cancer on Christmas Day 2008, as my father, my two younger brothers and more I sat around her. She was 55 and more I was 32. Although I knew that she was dying, I was completely unprepared for the parents, and only the parents reality of her being dead – and more for how alone I would feel with my grief.

In the parents, and only the parents strange days after her death I wondered what I was supposed to do. So did my friends, especially those who had not yet suffered a major loss. One sent flowers but did not call for weeks. Another sent a kind email, saying she hoped I was “well” and more asking me to let her know if the parents, and only the parentsre was “anything I can do to help”. But I wasn’t “well”. Within a week, people stopped mentioning her name, uncomfortable with the parents, and only the parents topic. After a month had passed by, I had the parents, and only the parents distinct feeling that I was supposed to “muscle through it” and more move on, as if I were recovering from flu rather than mourning the parents, and only the parents passing of my mother.

Today, most westerners are uncomfortable around death. As western cultures have become more secular and more heterogeneous, the parents, and only the parents rituals that once guided mourners and more communities through the parents, and only the parents painful currents of this intense time have dropped away. Grief has become more private even as it has been framed more psychologically. Friends talk to you about “getting through it” and more “healing”. They raise the parents, and only the parents question of antidepressants – but don’t know how to offer the parents, and only the parents simple help that many mourners need: acknowledgment and more recognition of the parents, and only the parentsir loss.

We shy away from talking about death, not out of cold-heartedness, but out of fear. Death scares us. No one wants to say the parents, and only the parents wrong thing. The result is a dysfunctional culture in which we avidly consume news of death on TV and more duck away from it in real life. It wasn’t always so: until the parents, and only the parents 20th century, private grief and more public mourning were allied in most cultures, and more mourning rituals extended over the parents, and only the parents course of at least a year. If your husband died, the parents, and only the parents village came to your door, bearing food, perhaps, and more you put on special mourning clothes. In many nations – among the parents, and only the parentsm China and more Greece – death was met with lamentation among family and more neighbours. A ceremony usually followed the parents, and only the parents cleaning of the parents, and only the parents body; a year later, another marked the parents, and only the parents first anniversary of a death. During the parents, and only the parents Victorian era, family members restricted the parents, and only the parentsir social lives and more adhered to a dress code for up to two years. Even at the parents, and only the parents turn of the parents, and only the parents century “the death of a man still solemnly altered the parents, and only the parents space and more time of a social group that could be extended to include the parents, and only the parents entire community,” noted the parents, and only the parents historian Philippe Ariès.

Then mourning rituals in the parents, and only the parents west began to disappear, for reasons that are not entirely evident. The anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, author of Death, Grief, and more Mourning, conjectures that the parents, and only the parents first world war was one cause: communities were so overwhelmed by the parents, and only the parents numbers of dead that the parents, and only the parentsy dropped the parents, and only the parents practice of mourning the parents, and only the parents individual. But clearly broader changes in the parents, and only the parents culture accelerated the parents, and only the parents shift. More people, including women, began working outside the parents, and only the parents home; in the parents, and only the parents absence of caretakers, death increasingly took place in the parents, and only the parents protective isolation of the parents, and only the parents hospital.

Psychoanalysis led to a shift from the parents, and only the parents communal to the parents, and only the parents individual experience. In 1917, two years after Émile Durkheim wrote about mourning as an essential social process, Freud’s Mourning and more Melancholia defined it as something fundamentally private; by the parents, and only the parents 1960s, Gorer would write: “Today it would seem to be believed, quite sincerely, that sensible, rational men and more women can keep the parents, and only the parentsir mourning under complete control by strength of will and more character, so that it need be given no public expression.”

In the parents, and only the parents wake of the parents, and only the parents Aids crisis and more 9/11, the parents, and only the parents conversation about death in the parents, and only the parents west has grown more open. Yet we still think of grieving as something to be done alone – which only intensifies its isolation. There might not be a “right” way to grieve, but it’s interesting to note that in western countries with fewer mourning rituals, the parents, and only the parents bereaved report a higher level of physical ailments in the parents, and only the parents year following a death – suggesting a very real human need to mourn communally. This may be one reason that we’ve witnessed a boom in memoirs about loss, like the parents, and only the parents one I wrote about my mother; the parents, and only the parentsy reflect our need to share our experience in an age that’s let go of the parents, and only the parents ceremonious language that once bridged the parents, and only the parents stark boundary between inner sorrow and more outer function. Each loss may be private, but mourning a death is the parents, and only the parents great universal – a condition that unites us.

Life and more style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by Bibliothèque de Toulouse

The government’s £26,000 benefit cap will hit large families hardest. Here, readers tell us of their experiences

Maelon

I grew up in exactly the kind of family the government reforms are targeting – I’m the eldest of nine, with parents who’ve never worked in my lifetime. We were always poor: Christmas presents were from Poundland, we never had holidays and yet neighbours would always parrot tales from tabloids about “scroungers” with satellite TV and expensive clothes, as though we were covertly living a life of luxury. Our benefits would be stopped several times a year due to administrative errors, and we’d be left with hardly anything to eat. One of my earliest political memories is being told that the fact we’d only eaten school meals for a week was because of John Major, and the fact that his party hated families like us.

My brother is disabled, and my mother cares for him round the clock. He often has to be taken from school early, and rarely sleeps through the night. She’s been unemployed since leaving school, and has no work experience. She managed to study for a teaching degree when we were growing up, but hasn’t been able to find a teaching post. I’m often asked why my mother had nine children, as though our existence is an affront to society. I’ve heard many people express support with the government’s benefits cap plans, and when I’ve challenged them, I’m always told my family are “different”. They’re not – but it’s easier to monster large families if you view them as feckless, and take umbrage with the right of everyone to have children. I find it genuinely terrifying that the government are happy to put children below the poverty line to “punish” their parents for choosing to have them.

Glyn Reed

I grew up in a large family of seven children. We lived behind our shoe shop in Salford, where we had two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and sitting room plus an outside toilet. Our income was meagre, but my parents managed amazingly on what they had. We lived in a proper community back then, until the late 1960s brought “slum clearance” – the eradication of networks of terraced houses and the closure of many factories in the area. My dad’s shop went down the pan along with other local businesses, and he took a job as a long distance lorry driver. My mum eventually took a job in a Manchester department store. We all managed to get reasonably good educations and careers.

As we grew up we never looked to our parents for funds. If we wanted extras like school trips, we got jobs doing paper rounds. Back then such jobs were plentiful and allowed. There was a stigma attached to signing on back then, and having a large family was also frowned upon.

I know that it is hard bringing up a large family today on limited means, but you choose how many children to have. Housing benefit is a good thing but I think it is a bit excessive to assume that children should not share rooms and therefore the state must provide large houses for large families. What on earth is wrong with sharing if that is the only option? A sense of victimhood is positively encouraged these days. It’s nonsense. Life is tough for a lot of people in Britain today, but it is nothing in comparison to the way the majority of people in the world have to live. How we have taken it all for granted.

Chilly1408

I am a 40-year-old housewife with four children. I met my husband after my boyfriend left me with my eight-month-old baby. We fell in love and decided to have more children – my husband was working and earning a decent wage. In 2002, my husband was diagnosed with acute glaucoma and lost most of his vision. Not being able to accomplish everyday tasks, he lost the job he loved. He is now seriously depressed and legally blind.

We live in a four-bedroom house in south London, which costs £1,450 a month. We receive £305 a week from income support and child tax credit, £60 a week child benefit, £300 a week housing benefit and £156 a month from disability living allowance. When the cap comes in, we will lose £249 a week in benefit. We will have to move into a one-bedroom flat to survive. How will that work? Those crying for the cuts to be implemented have to be aware that it could be their turn to lose their job or have an accident. We are not scroungers, we just need some support.

Simon Cleghorn

I am 40 and the second oldest of nine siblings – Roman Catholic of course. We grew up in Newcastle. Dad was unemployed due to the economic situation in the region, and so for most of my upbringing we lived in what most people would probably describe as serious economic hardship. That said, we were lucky. Though there was no spare money (even today, a chocolate digestive represents the height of luxury), there were always plenty of books, high academic expectations and very occasional trips to the cinema. All but one of my siblings have gone to good universities and had reasonable success in their professional lives. We were the exception, rather than the rule; I suspect that with the proposed benefit changes and changes to educational support, this would not be possible today.

The brutal changes proposed by the government are quite simply immoral, venal and cowardly. They will result in tens of thousands of people being permanently traumatised due to economic privation. And why? Because the Tory government will not tax their friends in the City. It seems obvious that we are sowing the seeds of serious social and political discontent. On this subject and at a personal level – though I probably am in the top 5% of earners – I do ask myself at what point do I start to believe that the degree of injustice begins to justify acts of rebellion. In the words of Thomas Jefferson: “When injustice becomes law then resistance becomes duty.” How we resist is then the question.

Life and style: Family | guardian.co.uk

by Stockholm Transport Museum Commons

LV=’s Cost of a Child survey says rising education costs and childcare are the biggest expenditure, as three-quarters of parents admit to making cutbacks in everyday living

The cost of raising a child from birth until their 21st birthday has soared to more than £218,000, according to research from insurer LV=, which makes more gloomy reading for the UK’s cash-strapped families.

With university tuition fees set to rise from this September to as much as £9,000 a year, the cost of putting youngsters through higher education is heaping the biggest financial pressure on parents, while creating more financial headaches for the future.

The report, Cost of a Child: From cradle to college 2012, reveals the overall cost of raising a child has increased by 3.3% since the last survey, with education and childcare remaining the biggest expenditure, costing parents £71,780 and £62,099 respectively. The figures in the report do not include loss of earnings from parents taking time off to raise their children.

Rising inflation and reduced disposable incomes are shown to be increasingly taking their toll. More than three-quarters of parents (76%) interviewed in the poll for LV= admitted they were making cutbacks to the family budget due to financial pressures.

In order to reduce outgoings, 67% of those planning to make savings are hunting down lower cost items or “value” goods in their weekly shop. More than a third (35%) of those on an economy drive are buying items from second-hand shops, and 34% are making extra cash by selling goods on eBay and at car boot sales. At the same time, two in five parents (43%) have cut back regular savings and only a third (32%) have life cover in place. The parents with thriftier tendencies have cut spending on their children’s hobbies and toys by 5%.

The survey also found that overall, parents have found themselves having to pay 5% more for essential items related to education, including school uniforms and sports equipment, after-school clubs and university tuition fees. But that does not include private school fees, confirming that even the necessities of a state education cost families thousands of pounds.

Over the past 12 months the cost of raising a child has increased the most during university years (18-21) when parents could fork out as much as £17,459 a year – up 5% from 2011. New parents have also seen the cost of the first year of their child’s lives increase 2.8% to an average of £10,261.

A recent report from Aviva also revealed a “notable” drop in the amount spent by families on children’s activities, from 4% of monthly income in January 2011 to just 1% in the same month this year. The Aviva Family Finances report showed the typical debt owed by a UK family has soared by 48% since January 2011, as rising inflation takes its toll on household incomes.

Mark Jones, head of protection at LV=, said: “Our report shows education costs have increased dramatically, and despite financial pressures many parents are seeking out savvy ways to ensure they can still afford their children’s higher education prospects. With tuition fees increasing this year we expect to see more parents making significant cutbacks across the family budget to accommodate this.”

The LV= report found 42% of parents who thought their children would to go to university still hoped their child would do so despite the increase in fees. But many cash-strapped parents are being forced to share the cost of university with their children – 15% of parents said their children will need to fund part of it themselves, 10% will be cutting back in other areas to fund the costs, and 8% will plunder their savings.

Calculations for the LV= report were compiled by the Centre for Economics and Business Research. The report also includes omnibus research conducted for LV= by Opinium Research in January 2012 using a sample of 2,119 UK adults.

Life and style: Family | guardian.co.uk