Three cheers for scrapping attainment targets for tots

I wholeheartedly welcome the government's decision to cut back on the number of attainment targets for tiny tots in their first years of school.

I have to admit, I've come to this issue rather back to front as I didn't realise youngsters' early education was so wrapped up in bureaucracy – until they mentioned on the news this week that they were scaling back on the paperwork.

For example, did you know that children as young as three or four have a journal kept on them throughout their first year in pre-school consisting of 69 targets they must meet? It has been slashed to 17 targets in this new move, and I just hope these are an appropriate 17.

The way I see it is, and this is a bit of a layman's perspective as I don't have a child at school yet, children that young, especially those at pre-school and in reception classes should be allowed to express themselves through play and craft without any big bad attainment target book casting its gloomy shadow over them. Simply playing with other children will help them learn a whole host of essential skills such as social interaction and communication. A clever teacher will be able to make what on the surface appear fun games educational by introducing numbers, letters and shapes.

Of course it is important for children to learn to read and write and do sums and I hope this is what those 17 remaining targets focus on, but at the same time unnecessary pressure shouldn't be put on children. Even aged three, they will know that they are being tested and feel the pressure, and potential disappointment, at not meeting the grade. This could actually affect them for life and make them feel completely inadequate compared to their peers.

It is these feelings which will stay with them throughout their entire education and make them stop trying because in their eyes there is simply no point.

All children learn in different ways and at different rates and if a teacher does feel a little one is underachieving their first move shouldn’t be to put a big black cross on a development table but to give that child a little extra support to help them progress.

It is this personal touch which seems to be lacking in schools today right up to GCSE and A Level standards. It is all about exam results and league tables now and so little about the joy of learning. I find it shocking that in English classes for example, pupils no longer read the whole of the book, just the section that will appear in the exam. Not only are these children missing out on a potentially entertaining and educational read for their own benefit but I have no idea how you are meant to fully answer an exam question on a book extract when you have no idea of its wider context.

I'm not sure who is driving this trend to top league tables – schools or the government. Schools certainly fear not doing well in them but I doubt anyone outside the education system even fully comprehends these tables. I certainly couldn't in all my years as a reporter, so in that sense it is nonsensical to put too much weight on them.

They are essentially based on exam grades and you get points for how much better your exam results are one year compared to the previous year. For this you get a value added score and you are placed in the table depending on this score alone. The fact this score means very little in terms of a comparison to other schools because it is based purely on the difference between your school's two years of exam results and not how they fared compared to other schools, seems to be neither here not there to headteachers desperate to plug their school's position in the league.

Whilst I was working as a journalist, all year it would be impossible to get hold of a secondary school teacher for a quote on anything but as soon as the league tables were out they would be on the phone themselves bragging about their value added scores.

I just hope this decision to cut back on attainment targets for the youngest of school pupils is the start of a good shake-up of the whole education system for all ages, so children can go back to learning everything there is to know about a subject not just what will help them pass an exam.

My daughter – the show off

We have had a few visitors round to our house recently and it has made it clearer than ever what a little show off my daughter is becoming.

After the initial warm-up period when she is working out who these people are and what they are doing in her home, she appears to think, yep they seem okay, an ideal audience to show off to.

She'll pull herself up to stand in front of the TV and then have a quick look behind her. “Did you see me do that?” she seems to be saying.

She'll grab hold of her toy tambourine and give it a shake, then she'll pause and look around again. “Did you see me do that?”

At this point she'll start getting a bit carried away. She'll start waving her arms around. “Did you see me then?”

She'll clap her hands together. “How about that. Did you see me, did you see me?”

After a time she'll completely give up on the pauses. Instead she'll simply sit there on the floor in front of her audience, kick her feet, wave her hands and squeal in delight. A right little performer.

And she's even worse with just mummy and daddy. She has worked out exactly what to do to get the best kind of reaction out of us.

When I'm sat on the sofa busily writing away, her little head will suddenly pop over the arm of the chair. It never fails to get a laugh out of me, especially when she combines this little game of peek-a-boo with a cry of 'yeahhhhh'.

When she's having her nappy changed she'll put her arms above her head inviting you to tickle her under the armpits or pull the cloth used to dry her off over her face and wait just long enough to keep you in suspense, before whipping it off with a giggle.

At bath time she'll wait until you least expect it and suddenly kick and kick her legs ferociously, sending a spray of water over everyone.

And unfortunately she knows what will really give mummy a laugh. She'll blow raspberries at me while she's eating her lunch in her high-chair. This is an extremely messy habit but the fact you can tell by her face that she is doing this simply to entertain, makes it hilarious to watch. As much as I know I should be telling her off, I can't through the tears of mirth.

When we go out in the car as a family and stop at traffic lights, me and my husband will often turn around to look at our daughter sitting in the back. She will give us such a beaming return of a smile and delightedly her eyes will flicker from my face to my husband's and you can see her thinking, “there they are, my captive audience. Time to entertain”.

How was the presence of a baby not enough to stop the racist acid thrower?

I cannot even begin to understand what was going through the head of the racist thug who squirted acid at a black mother as she walked with her six-month-old baby.

The attack in itself is despicable. The woman, who was walking through a subway in broad daylight with her baby in its pram, seems to have been targeted purely because of the colour of her skin. The thug had set out to attack someone that day as he had the acid to hand but it doesn't appear this mother was his premeditated victim, she just happened to be the first person with black skin he saw.

But what really upsets me is the fact this woman having her baby with her did nothing to prevent this thug attacking her. I realise people like this man are not rational, clear thinking people. They are obviously mentally unbalanced to think it is acceptable to behave in such a manner in the first place.

However, I would have hoped even in the most warped of minds there would be some kind of cut off point over what they are prepared to do.

Surely an alarm bell should have gone off in this thug's mind. OK, this lady has a young baby with her – she's not the one to take my racial hatred out on. The evidence shows that this kind of thought did not go through his head.

The mother, who is Afro Caribbean, suffered burns to her chest and back and is believed to have had multiple skin grafts.

The thug yelled a racist comment at her before throwing acid at her back. When she turned round he threw more acid onto her chest.

Thankfully, the baby was unharmed in the attack. The possibility that it could have been hit by the acid doesn't even bare thinking about.

I hope between the time of writing and you reading this, the racist thug has been arrested and dealt with appropriately but if he hasn't I'm going to dust off my journalistic hat for a moment and put some details up on my blog to aid in his capture.

The attack took place at 2pm last Thursday (March 22) whilst the mother was walking through a subway in Broad Street, Pendleton in Salford.

The man who attacked her is described as white, of stocky build, five foot 10 inches to six foot two inches tall, had very short dark hair with a bald patch at the back. He wore a long sleeved dark grey jumper with a round neck, black tracksuit bottoms with a grey and white stripe down each leg and Adidas trainers.

If anyone saw this man or recognises his description they should call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

It is attacks like this, on mothers and their babies, which make me realise what a sick place our world can be.

My daughter – the elephant

My daughter has the memory of an elephant. She never forgets. At least, she didn't forget the room where she last had her immunisations. As soon as we stepped into it, she burst into tears.

Because that was the joyful task of yesterday. My daughter getting her 12 month jabs. It's a cruel twist of fate really. All these babies turning one and enjoying all the presents, the parties and the extra attention, only for them to find a few days later that they have a date with a needle, or in this case, three.

My daughter certainly wasn't best pleased as soon as she discovered what was going on. What made it more cruel was she had been having a fantastic time in the waiting room, freaking out all the

sick people. She was in her usual high spirits, oohing and aahing at absolutely everything and anything. A quit smoking poster seemed to be a particular feast for her little eyes.

And of course she couldn't stop staring at everyone else in the waiting room. There was one man in particular who she kept insisting on turning around and gawping at and I could see he was getting more and more uncomfortable. I tried to distract her with Mr Speak the Mouse but it just wasn't enough to stop her.

Normally I would brand this kind of behaviour on the part of this man as quite sub-normal. My daughter didn't mean any harm and she was grinning the whole time she was eye-balling him, but I will make allowances as he was probably feeling quite ill- hence why he was at the doctors in the first place.

Even when the nurse came out to get us – are the people who give the injections nurses? – probably – my daughter was unperturbed. She must have thought – get in, another person to devour with my eyes.

But as soon as we got into the needle wielder's room, it all changed. Even the needle wielder – I mean nurse – commented on it, saying it was such a long time ago that my daughter had had her last jabs – she was 16 weeks so over half a life time ago – so how could she possibly remember?

To make things even more complicated, or perhaps even more incredible, my daughter had never been in this particular room before. We have moved house since her last immunisations and thus have moved doctors. There must be something about the atmosphere of these rooms. The lighting, the sterile tiled floor, the ominous looking couch in the corner, and I would imagine a particular medical smell picked up by my daughter's ultra-sensitive nose. Either way, she knew this environment meant bad news.

I'm just glad there are no more jabs until my daughter's three and a half-years-old.

There is something highly unnatural about having to hold my daughter down whilst needles are inserted into her thighs. My daughter was beside herself by this point as you can imagine and unfortunately didn't understand me when I told her it was almost all over for two and a half years.

However, judging by my daughter's super-human memory, in two and a half year's time, when we enter the needle wielder’s room again, she'll remember what's in store and at that age she'll be capable of running for the door.

My Tiny Dancer

My daughter has started to dance.

I'm not making this up. I couldn't believe my eyes when I say it either.

As regular readers of my blog will know, my daughter has a habit of pulling herself up to stand in front of the television when her favourite programmes are on. Very often she will bang her hands on the table top or if she has a toy to hand, bang that up and down on the table instead.

Invariably this has been an accompaniment to music on the TV but not always.

But she's pretty much over night added a whole new dimension to her TV watching behaviour.

Appropriately, she was watching Angelina Ballerina on TV when she first aired her dancing

skills.

The theme music started up and my daughter began to jiggle up and down on the spot.

My husband was also there to witness this and we both looked at each other and then at my daughter and back at each other again, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, hardly believing what we were witnessing.

To further compound that her bouncing was not just a random whim, as soon as the theme music stopped, my daughter stopped bouncing, and oblivious to the surprise and delight she had caused in her mummy and daddy, continued to watch the TV screen.

And this was no fluke either. On a number of occasions since, she has danced to theme music. Rory the Racy Car is a big favourite. Her dancing skill has also come on. It doesn't just involve bouncing up and down now. She does a little side to side motion, with a bend of the knee on one

side and then a bend of the knee on the other, her head nodding along in time to the music. She already has a very good sense of rhythm but then I was just the same, apparently.

My mum likes to tell the story of how I was in the pushchair one day and she stopped to watch a string quartet busking at the side of the street and my little foot started tapping up and down in time with the music. But I can't imagine being able to display such amazing dancing skill when I was my daughter's age.

Oh my daughter, you never fail to make me smile.

In the words of Elton John – “Hold me closer tiny dancer, count the headlights on the highway...”

Feed me...!

The biggest piece of baby-related news this week is that babies fed on demand have a higher IQ.

I fed my daughter on demand up until she started eating solids at six months – then I endeavoured to get her into a routine of set meal times.

So of course I'm going to be in support of this latest finding aren't I – well kind of.

I'm in support of any study which comes out in favour of demand feeding because in my opinion it is at once the most natural and logical way to feed your little one. Natural because you have to remember milk in those first six months is baby's main meal, snack and drink. Humans are creatures of habit and tend to eat their main meals at similar times of the day but I bet few people snack and drink at set times. It is natural a baby should call to be fed, and thus watered, at varied times of the day.

Logical because of almost the same reasons really. If you set your baby a timetable where they must feed every three hours I think I can safely say there are times during that three hour slot when your baby starts to get a bit tetchy and is probably thinking in its little mind, I could do with a drink right now. Logic told me, why put a baby through this period of agony for the sake of routine when in its later life when it asks for a drink you will probably give it one, and the same for a snack, within reason. There is no point torturing the poor child.

But how about order and discipline I hear some of you cry? That comes later I respond, with a wink. It's a tight run ship around my house these days. Mealtimes, nap times and bedtimes are always at the same times and I can't cope with diversion, but the routine we stick to is one based on my observations of when on average my daughter becomes hungry, thirsty and tired. It is not a routine aimed at manipulating against how she would behave naturally. She is completely happy with the schedule I make her keep because when it's time to eat, she's hungry, when it's nap time, she's tired.

If I had run rough shod from the beginning, devising a routine without the vital period of observation when I took in what would work for her, it would never had been such a success.

However, in those first few months you feed your baby when they wants it. You get to know when they're crying out of hunger and not for anything else and I think it makes for a much more contented, happy baby and a much more contented, happy mummy.

Those six months are nothing in your child's life so if it is a bit hectic and you feel you are always feeding, remember you will look back and in the grand scheme of things it will seem a tiny sacrifice.

This new study has found that those children who are fed on demand when they need it are more likely to grow up having a higher IQ and perform better at school, compared to those fed according to a schedule. In actual fact, the previously demand fed children were found to have a IQ of four or five points higher, which is not huge but nevertheless significant.

What media reports on this have not been explicit about is why they develop higher IQs. I will surmise it is because they are allowed to make vital decisions early in life and are rewarded for making their needs known. Therefore they are actively engaging with their environments while schedule fed babies will in contrast be more passive because they are not given the opportunity to ask for food, it is simply given to them at set times whether they want it then or not.

This study is however too simplistic for my liking. It is impossible, I believe, to reduce this issue down into a simple cause and effect. I think there are more factors at work here.

Dare I say, the type of parents who feed their babies on demand are likely to be more intelligent themselves because it is the more considered option, and therefore there is more chance they will produce more intelligent children.

Also, I would be interested to see how many of these demand fed babies were breast fed rather than bottle fed. I would expect a higher proportion were breast fed simply because breast feeding and demand feeding work very well in tandem together. Breast fed babies don't take in as much milk at a feed as bottle fed babies and so are more inclined to require feeding more often.

Again, breast feeding tends to be the feeding method of choice by the more educated because they are more informed about the major health benefits of breast milk. Also, breast milk is such an amazing substance it is bound to contain brain boosting properties.

I by no means wish to dismiss this latest study because it has put across a very important message of the benefits of demand feeding but it's not solely about producing a more intelligent child, its benefits are far greater than that.

Make friends, make friends, never never break friends

Teachers at some schools have banned pupils from having best friends so they don't get upset by fall outs.

The primary school children are instead being encouraged to play in large groups. The policy has been introduced at schools in Kingston, South West London and Surrey. This move has already attracted its critics and I can understand why.

In my view, the first problem is teachers can try and remove the label 'best friends' but quite naturally young children will still develop closer relationships with some children over others.

It is human nature to get on with some people better than others if we share common ground, have similar outlooks on life or are from the same backgrounds and so on, while often we just 'click' with some people.

Children are no different – in fact young girls in particular are very prone to forming incredibly close bonds with other girls. You see them in the playground holding hands and whispering into each other's ears. They share a friendship to be envied, such a close companionship and sense of belonging they enjoy with each other.

Teachers can tell these children not to have a 'best friend' but the sentiment will still be there. It could actually cause more heartbreak preventing these young children from expressing their feelings of friendship for each other.

Because that is the main aim of this policy apparently, to prevent the pain of having to deal with break-ups when these best friends fall out. Nothing can match that first fall out with your best friend at primary school. I remember very clearly when it happened to me. We had been making glove puppets at school and another girl told my best friend that I had laughed at her puppet behind her back. My best friend believed this other girl over me.

I can honestly say I had never laughed at her glove puppet and that made the experience doubly painful - because I had been so falsely accused.

But however painful it was for me, I consider it now as a formative moment in my life. Up to that point I had never felt such a sense of betrayal but obviously it was not to be the last time I was to feel this way.

You can try and shelter children from negative experiences only for so long. One day negative feelings will catch up with them and the longer children have been closeted, the greater the blow it will be to deal with.

I think it is very important for children to learn about relationships and most importantly, to learn about them naturally.

P-p-p-pick up a penguin

Primrose the penguin has been added to my daughter's menagerie of toy animals following our trip to the zoo to mark her first birthday.

Primrose is a glove puppet penguin we liberated from the gift shop. (I've just read that sentence back and by liberated, I do not mean stolen – pennies were exchanged with the

shop keeper.)

My daughter fell head over heels in love with the real life penguins at the zoo and so no other toy seemed a more fitting memento of the day.

Off we set in the car yesterday morning, me and my husband singing at the tops of our voices “Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow” but substituting tomorrow for today of course.

I had told my daughter all about the amazing animals we were going to see – the lions, the giraffes, the rhinos. If I was a betting person I wouldn't have put any money on my daughter favouring the penguins the best, but she never fails to surprise me.

I lifted her out of her pushchair and let her peer over the side of the penguin enclosure and she started to flap her little hands and break into her 'oooh, oooh, oooh' cry. She couldn't take her eyes off the little dinner jacketed bird walking around the perimeter of the enclosure just a few feet below us, that was until she saw one of the other penguins splosh into the water and start to swim around. Who are these crazy critters, she must have been thinking that not only wobble from

side to side like a Weeble but can swim as well?

All the animals we saw were rated on the oooh, oooh, oooh scale. (oooh – pronounced to rhyme with blue.)

The run down of the day is as follows:

Storks – Oooh, oooh, with a reach of a hand and an attempt to break free of the straps of her pushchair to get a better look.

Snowy Owl – Oooh, oooh, followed by an intake of breath like she was hyper-ventilating.

Emu – Oooh

Zebra – Nothing

Monkeys – puzzled look. No ooohs.

Rhinos – nothing

Pigeon – Oooh, oooh, oooh. (As an aside – this pigeon was nothing to do with the zoo. It had dropped by to scavenge for dropped sandwich crumbs.)

Ostrich – an uncertain oooh.

Camels – what was that, a little oooh, no my mistake, nothing.

Other children – oooh, oooh, oooh.

Dog – oooh, oooh, oooh, hands waving, straining at the pushchair straps. (Again, the dog was nothing to do with the zoo. A visitor's dog.)

Pigs – Oooh, oooh, eyes and mouth open wide in amazement. Even when walking away, straining to look back at them, hands outstretched.

Donkey – Oooh, oooh, trying to break out of my arms and over the fence to be with the donkeys.

Unicorn – only joking

Bumble bee – mesmerised, too busy for ooohs. (Yet again, bumble bee not really anything to do with the zoo, just visiting the zoo's flowers.)

Goats – Slight oooh when one tried to climb a tree.

Reindeer – ditto/see above.

Big fat pot-bellied pig – Too busy laughing at the big fat pot-bellied pig scratching its bottom against a rock to oooh.

Miscellaneous (including leaves, grass, twigs and shadows) – mega oooh.

Penguins – Oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh - times affinity.

Happy Birthday to my daughter

So, here we are. My daughter is one today. There was time when I wasn't sure I'd get to this milestone alive.

It has been the toughest, most gruelling, most rewarding and joyful year of my life. I can't help feeling that today is as momentous a day for me as it is my daughter. Not to take it away from her, but I too feel I need to revel ever so slightly in my own achievements. It is a birthday after all, and I was very much a part of that birth – believe it or not.

I remember as clear as if it were yesterday that moment the midwife put my daughter on my chest and I looked down on her little face for the first time. A lot of the early moments of my daughter's life are a bit blurry but her little face and how it looked then is crystal clear.

I can see those chubby cheeks – her face seemed to be all cheeks – and that little chin not yet fully defined and those blue eyes already looking intensely at her surroundings. She was instantly curious as she is constantly investigating her world now.

It is incredible to think how much she has progressed from that helpless newborn baby to the little personality she has become. So sure of herself, firm and confident on her feet and only weeks away now I'm sure from her first unassisted step.

Never again will she progress so quickly in terms of development over a year. It really is mind-boggling how all babies change over those first 12 months. If we as adults learned so many new skills, grew in confidence, understanding and intelligence as rapidly over a year as babies do, well we would be unstoppable – it would be a terrifying world to live in.

It hasn't been easy this first year. My earliest experiences as a mother are not fully documented on this blog but in short, it has been the greatest challenge I have ever had to rise to.

Its gruelling nature has been of my own making. I am sure a lot of mums breeze through this first year in comparison to me. Yes, there are the sleepless nights which make even everyday tasks very difficult but I have always burdened myself with so much extra pressure.

I have approached motherhood as I have always approached my working life, with 100 per cent application and dedication and a fearsome ambition to be the best at what I do. It is in my nature and I can't switch it off, even now as a full-time mother.

This has meant I have found situations where I have not had full control hard to handle, such as making sure my daughter gets enough to eat and gets to sleep at the right times. With me out of the driving seat and another personality to have to contend with, who is jointly responsible for our success, it has been very hard. This combined with my tendency to over think and analyse everything – well at times it has almost been game over.

I wish I could have just shrugged my shoulders a bit more. But at the same time I wouldn't change a thing about the past year. The reason for this is I look at my daughter and see what an incredible little human being she is becoming and think if anything had been any different she may not be that person she is now. I too would not be able to appreciate how I have come out of an impenetrable fog to see clear daylight ahead.

It has been an amazing year and now it is time to look forward to the next. With it I am sure there will be even more challenges but at least now I feel I have completed my apprenticeship as a mum and can move on with more confidence.

So to my daughter – happy birthday once again. You have given everyone who knows you incredible joy over the past year – especially your mummy and daddy who can't imagine life without you. You are very much loved.

Is Mother's Day over commercialised?

Mother's Day is what you make of it. Of course it is over commercialised but every day of national celebration we have in this country has been leapt on for commercial gain.

Just because you cannot move in shops for the cards, flowers and chocolates rolled out weeks in advance of Mothering Sunday, it does not mean we have to turn our backs on a celebration which honours our mothers.

Mother's Day is a lovely tradition which I think is very important to mark in our own special ways. We do not have to buy the most expensive cards, the biggest bouquets of flowers and max out the credit card. The smallest token can just as easily be enough to tell our mothers we love them because it is very much the message that counts.

I'm sure many people have that sinking feeling when they go into a shop and see the Mother's Day card stand and think 'oh no here we go again', another card I need to purchase along with the birthday cards, the Christmas cards, the Valentine's cards and so on.

It can be a little pressured to have to show your mum you care on a set day. A lot of people would argue they show their mother their love on many days of the year and don't have to be called to order.

However, it isn't Mr Clinton Cards who decreed Mother's Day should take place every year on a Sunday in March.

The celebration has its roots in antiquity. One of the earliest historical records can be found among the ancient Egyptians who held an annual festival to honour the goddess Isis, who was regarded the mother of the Pharaohs.

A later incarnation of a holiday to honour motherhood came from Europe. Early Christians used the fourth Sunday of Lent to honour the church in which they were baptised – known as their Mother Church.

It was a clerical decree in England in the 1600s which broadened the celebration to include real mothers. It was known as Mothering Sunday and was an especially compassionate holiday towards the working classes. Servants and trade workers were allowed to travel back to their towns of origin to visit their families. Mothers were presented with cakes and flowers.

Mother's Day still in my opinion holds a very important place in our society. I think it is very important to set aside a day, if nothing else to draw attention to the fantastic job mums do.

Before becoming a mum myself I have to say I saw mums out and about pushing their children around in their pushchairs and thought, you've got the easy option there. As I slave away day to day at work dealing with all the stresses and strains that come with a pressured career, there you are going to the park, ambling round the shops and sitting drinking copious cups of tea with other mums in Costa.

Now I realise I couldn't have had it any more wrong. Nothing has ever been harder work for me than looking after my own daughter. I have a new found respect for mothers. I see them out and about now and think how are you doing this job? It surprises me what a range of women fulfil this role. It is not like other jobs where there is usually a certain character who is good at it. With motherhood there are all types of mothers with very different personalities and outlooks on life, all trying to do the best they can in their own individual ways.

Then there are some mothers who have to perform well beyond the call of duty and they certainly deserve a national day. I'm talking about single mothers who through no fault of their own are having to bring up a number of children single-handed. It must be such a terrible weight on their shoulders, especially if their partner has died and they had no choice but to pull themselves up and carry on with life.

I was watching the news recently when they were talking about the latest soldier killed in conflict. They had the wife of this soldier bravely reading out a statement in tribute to her husband and what really touched me was how when the camera flipped back to the newsreader he said it was the wife, who had been left behind to bear the grief of losing her husband while continuing to bring up their children, who was the real hero and this rang true for me. I had never actually thought of it in this way before. It is the women left behind who have the hardest job.

In this day and age there is this 'craze' I will call it for people having time off work for stress. I'd like to invite them to look after a few young children for a week and then they can compare just how that rated compared to their day to day job. As a mother there is no opportunity to say, no sorry I'm far too stressed out to do this job today. The children can fend for themselves – I'm retreating under the duvet. It just can't happen.

Mothers really are the heroines of our society and yes shops do try and cash in on this celebration and yes it does heap a whole lot of guilt and pressure on the shoulders of sons and daughters already up to their eye balls in the pressures of modern life. But I think this is even more reason for everyone to take a day to reflect on what is really important in life and to give their mother's a little token of their appreciation and a whole lot of love.

Life as a children's TV presenter

What must life be like as a children's TV presenter?

How do they reason off their antics on screen with their friends down the pub after work? Are they always such jolly, bright, smiley characters or once the cameras turn off are they ripping the ribbons out of their hair and grabbing for their packets of Marlboro Lights.

I think Blue Peter presenters are in a different category. There is something still quite credible about securing this role. No one represents this more finely at the moment than Helen Skelton. She is your typical, pretty blonde with an uber-trendy wardrobe who could well be using her assets to snare a footballer down The Ivy but instead she is a proper role model for girls, raising thousands for charity and securing slots in the record books as she kayaks single-handedly down the Amazon, tight-rope walks between the towers of Battersea Power Station and treks to the South Pole.

No, not presenters like her. I'm talking about the ones in particular who fill the gaps between the programmes on Cbeebies. The ones who wear red jumpers with green trousers and dance around like the soles of their feet are on fire.

What do they say when they meet their mates for a pint after work? “Yeah, had a really productive day today. Dressed up as a penguin and did some finger painting. Can't wait for tomorrow. I'm going to get my guitar out and sing about chopping up onions.”

Do the women constantly wear their hair in pigtails? Do they get ready for a night out and find themselves automatically plaiting away only to stop themselves just in time before they walk out the door with their hair like a five-year-old girls?

Are all their wardrobes packed full of clothes in every colour of the rainbow?

Do they really think all those birthday cards doting parents send in are 'absolutely fantastic'?

But I suppose I shouldn't mock. It's a job and someone's got to do it. Besides it hasn't done Philip Schofield any harm and he spent years shut in a broom cupboard with a gopher puppet.

Now that's a bright idea

I suppose there are a few explanations for the anomaly that greeted me when I went in to see my daughter after her post-lunch nap.

I could be losing my marbles – hmm? Or at least forgetting things. My daughter's nearly a year old now. I refuse to accept the fact I'm suffering from 'baby brain', a condition make up by mums I feel to allow them to get away with murder or something quite close to it.

Our house could be haunted. This is not really possible considering we are the first people to live in it. Our last house was almost certainly haunted so I can speak with some authority when I say there are no spirits in this house, not even vodka.

So I am left with one explanation. My daughter turned on the light in her room.

Because that is exactly what I was confronted with when I went into her room. The light shining bright like a beacon hanging from the ceiling.

I have to admit, I did do a double take on entering her bedroom and quickly sifted back through my memory bank to see if it was possible I would have left the light on but a quick trawl through my mind came back with a resounding no.

What really gave my daughter away as the culprit was the fact she was stood up at the end of the cot in reaching distance of the light switch. The other big give away was the pleased as punch expression on her face, which was clearly saying 'look what I've done'.

I blame my husband completely for this latest development. It was indeed he who would brag when she was just a few months old that our daughter knew how the light switched worked. Repeatedly on entering and exiting her room he would count to three and flick the switch. Our daughter would wait with bated breath for the 'three' before breaking into a beaming smile as the light switch flicked with a click and her room lit up as if by magic.

This information must have been stored away in her brain until she had mastered the ability to stand up in her cot and reach out for the switch. She must have been thinking as soon as I can stand I'm going to get to that light switch and turn it on, oh yes I am.

What a triumph she must have felt as with a push of her tiny little index finger she was able to illuminate her whole bedroom.

She must have literally woken up from her nap, crawled to the end of her cot and stood up thinking, well I'm awake, what next? I know, let's turn the light on.

I'm now just waiting for when she wakes up during the night and decides to switch her light on. That could give me and my husband a real fright to wake up in the middle of the night to realise a light had been switched on across the landing. Thoughts of burglars and those ghosts will certainly cross our minds before our sleep-fuzzed minds remember our daughter's latest trick.

The other option is to move her cot out of reach of the light switch but my daughter's far too enterprising for this to stop her.

She'll probably get her teddy bear to hold on to her ankles as she stretches across.

Love and marriage...go together like a horse and carriage

My daughter took her first proper steps yesterday while holding onto her walker. I looked up from my notepad and at first didn't quite register exactly what she was achieving, so incredible was it to see.

And what was the first thing I did. I grabbed my mobile phone and sent a text message to my husband to let him know what our little girl had just done.

It must be terribly sad to be a single parent and have no one to share these special moments with. Of course they can tell their friends and other family members but it cannot compare to telling your husband who can equally understand the surge of pride you feel.

This is why I find it such a bitter shame that the institution of marriage is receiving yet another knock in the press this week.

The very opposite was intended by the coalition government who voiced its own opinions about the importance of marriage for the welfare of children. But I know how this will work unfortunately.

Whenever anyone speaks out about the merits of being married, people en masse surge up and say how outrageous it is that we still have these views.

They claim that as long as a child is loved by just one parent then all is well and single parent families cannot be blamed for young people running riot – literally - under-performing at school and growing up to be dysfunctional adults.

Couples co-habiting but unmarried claim they only had enough money for children or marriage and as marriage is only a piece of paper and children are by nature a life-long commitment, they chose to have children.

There is sense in all of these points to a degree, but I think it would be refreshing for people to actually stand up and say yes, it is quite right that marriage is preferable to provide a stable background for children to thrive in.

To me it is the obvious course of action. In reality things happen which mean that not everyone can take that course and this I whole-heartedly accept. But even when it comes to people sitting around a table on day-time TV and talking hypothetically it seems it would choke them to even say marriage is the preferred option.

I fear that unless more people speak out in support of marriage, in decades to come it is going to be a truly archaic thing to do.

The coalition government has done just that and put forward marriage as the correct path to take before having children but they are actually the last people we want fighting that particular corner at this time – so down on MPs the country is at the moment.

It is going to take the average TV presenter and celebrity to uphold the traditional way of life of getting married and then having children for people to sit up and listen. It is a sorry state of affairs but this is the current culture we live in – run by celebrities.

I do hope that people see the sense of getting married before they have children so they can share on an equal footing the joys of being a parent.

According to statistics, 33 per cent of unmarried couples who have children split up before their child is five.

What an awful situation it must be to not have that security that your partner won't just walk out the door at any moment and leave you and your child behind. To find love visit Parship

Smaller portions of bad advice please

Nutritionists are advising we modify our children's portion sizes in line with how heavy they are.

In other words, children who are overweight should be given smaller portions, while thinner children should be given larger portions. To me this is closing the stable door once the horse has bolted.

The last situation you want to be in as a parent is to have two children, one overweight and the other 'average' and have to give the overweight child a smaller portion of their dinner whilst their sibling tucks into a much larger meal.

How is this going to affect the overweight child? Surely it is going to set them up with all kinds of psychological problems in the future. They will feel completely singled out and deprived, and quite possibly develop a bad relationship with food later on.

At the same time, the other, thinner, child could also be damaged by this difference in treatment. They in turn could become complacent about food and feel they are immune to its negative effects such as weight gain, only for it to catch up with them later.

On the face of it what nutritionists are saying is sensible advice. Of course it is wise to reduce a child's portion size and encourage them to eat healthier food in order for them to lose those extra pounds.

But I really believe that families should do all they can from the very beginning to instil healthy eating habits in their children so it does not need to get to the point of children having to slim down. Anything like dieting seems an alien concept for children to have to deal with when they are still growing and developing.

Children need to be educated about food from the very beginning as soon as they understand what is going on at the dinner table. Similarly, getting them into the kitchen and helping prepare the family meal will help them see what is going into the dish.

If from the very beginning they know what is healthy and see junk food as a treat rather than an everyday occurrence, then parents need not ever get to the point where they are having to restrict their children’s eating.

Also plenty of exercise will help children's overall health. If youngsters learn that they will be able to eat more food if they run around and burn off plenty of calories, this too will set them up with a good attitude later in life.

Too often in families where a child is overweight or obese, the parents are obese also. Whole families need to start looking at their eating habits in order to prevent bad habits being passed onto the next generation. Even in families where only one child is overweight and the parents are not particularly large, they more often than not are eating the same unhealthy food and so even if they are not fat on the outside, they may well be just as unhealthy as an overweight person on the inside.

I do wish people with a voice would come at a problem from the right angle. Saying that parents should match dishes to the size of their children is completely the wrong way to approach the problem of obesity in children.

Nutritionists should be using their authoritative position to make it clear parents must educate their children about healthy eating from the earliest opportunity. Or they should go back even further then that – prospective parents should be encouraged to look at what they are putting into their own mouths.

We've been tangoed

Is this a little far fetched...?

Me and my husband had just sat down to eat our tea at around 8pm on Friday evening when there was a knock on the door.

We both looked at each other, wearing identical startled rabbit in the headlights expressions. This was very unusual. Who could be knocking at our door at this unearthly hour? Yes, I know it was only 8pm but we are parents to a baby under one. This is late in the evening for us.

Anyway, my husband begrudgingly got up from his chair to investigate, me calling after him, “don't let them in, whoever they are”, while almost half ducking under the dining table in a bid to hide from the ransacking hordes I seemed to think had arrived on our doorstep. I should have realised I was safe on this front at least. Ransacking hordes don't usually knock.

I strained my ears to listen to what was going on at the front door. After my husband opened the door there seemed to be a rather heavy silence for a few moments. This didn't sound good. I considered vaulting over my daughter's safety gate and into the sanctuary of the kitchen.

Then my husband said in his I mean business voice, “yes?”

“Pizza?” a stranger's voice stammered.

“No, we haven't ordered pizza here.”

The delivery man uncertainly reeled off our address, adamant this pizza was for us.

“Yes”, replied my husband, the irritation rising in his voice. “But we haven't ordered any pizza”.

The delivery man must have slunk away without another word, because the next moment my husband was back at the table.

“Pizza?” I asked him quizzically.

My husband then filled me in on all the details I had missed.

He said he had opened the front door to be confronted with a man with a can of Tango in his hand. He had obviously been taken aback by this spectacle and waited for this man to speak to explain what on earth he was doing. When he didn't, he had had no choice but to demand some kind of verbal exchange, hence his somewhat gruff, “yes?”

When the man of many words had said “pizza” it was then my husband noticed the red pizza delivery bag under his armpit.

He had thought at first this man was some kind of fizzy drink door-to-door salesman.

Then began the speculation over why someone was trying to deliver a pizza to our door. I hadn't ordered pizza. My husband hadn't ordered pizza.

Simultaneously our eyes rose up to the ceiling to indicate out 11-month-old daughter sleeping upstairs.

Just think if had been her, we both giggled.

I could see her now, her Fisher Price mobile phone in hand, dialling the takeaway pizza number. “Large chicken supreme please”, she would babble, “and a can of orange Tango”.

She would have heard the delivery man's moped wining down the road and hear the exchange downstairs.

There she would have been at her bedroom window, waving her little hands frantically. “Up here, up here, “she would have babbled, her blankets already tied together to form a rope for the delivery man to tie the pizza to. Stealthily she had been planning to pull it up the side of the house and into her bedroom.

Her waving hands must have changed into waving fists as she saw the delivery man riding away on his moped, her pizza and can of Tango on the back.

"That's the last time I order from that takeaway”, she probably complained to her teddy bear. “I told them not to knock on the front door but send it straight up”.

I asked my daughter the next morning if she knew anything about the pizza and the can of orange Tango and she didn't respond. Her silence spoke volumes.

Maybe me and my husband are letting our imaginations run away with us but I don't care. Just imaging this scenario had me laughing until tears streamed down my face.

Fairy tales should come with a PG warning

How strongly shall I put this. Let's just say I was quite taken aback by some of the stories in My Big Book of Fairy Tales when my husband started to read them to my daughter.

As the title suggests, it was, and is, my big book of fairy tales which I have treasured since my own childhood for the very purpose of reading them to my own children. But I don't remember them being quite like this.

I am aware of course that some fairy tales can be particularly gruesome such as Grimms fairy tales and even stories like the initially innocent Little Red Riding Hood are far more layered than would ever meet a child's eye.

However, mistakenly, and with perhaps a touch of the rose-tinted glasses, I remembered My Big Book of Fairy Tales as being immune to any innuendo or sensationalist detail. I was wrong.

Even Snow White gave me a bit of a turn. Disney certainly left out a few of the details in his adaptation of the story. Did you know for instance that even before the poisoned apple comes on the scene the Wicked Queen attempts to kill Snow White with her bare hands tightening her bodice until the breath is squeezed out of Snow White's body. She leaves her on the ground in a faint, thinking she is dead. That's not at all how I remember it.

Then there is the Pied Piper of Hamlin. See, I suppose I knew that the story goes that the Pied Piper plays his pipe to entice all the rats away from the village and when the mayor fails to pay him for his work he entices all the children of the village away. But it is not until you hear the story again and specifically the closing words 'the children of Hamlin were never seen again' that you realise what a chilling tale it is.

And a note must be made of the more obscure tale in this book entitled 'Can you keep a secret?'.

I'm aware that many parents, particularly mother's with a vehement feminist streak, cannot abide fairy tales and believe they are extremely damaging for young girls because they give the impression that life is all about hanging around for your handsome prince to carry you away into the sunset.

I don't have a problem with this because I don't think it will cause girls to think this is their lot in life. It didn't have that effect on me. Granted, I did perhaps grow up with an idealistic view that I would fall in love and live happily ever after, but at the same time I also had very clear ideas about making a career for myself. From a young age I remember my idol being Lois Lane. I wanted to be the highly-successful, daredevil journalist but I also wanted to be swept off my feet my Superman. I wanted it all and as an adult I have been lucky to have both.

I don't think it's wrong for young girls to grow up with some ideals because it will not be long before they are old enough to realise life isn't so sugar-coated, but at the same time they will have been introduced at a young age to an important set of values of love, and monogamy, and ultimately family, which seem to be going out of fashion.

I can't see these young women who are obsessed with becoming WAGS and having a footballer husband to take care of them as the type to have been read fairy tales as young girls, correct me if I'm wrong. I think they are a product of a modern age where young people want money and fame very quickly for the minimum of effort.

But despite my views on this I was almost offended by this one particular tale 'Can you keep a secret'. The story tells of three beautiful sisters and a handsome prince. In order for him to decide which sister he should marry, in turn the prince tells them a secret and comes back in a week to see if they have kept it. The first two sisters fail to do so but the third sister keeps the secret for the express reason she is unable to remember what the secret is.

The prince declares, this is the one for me – in other words he'll take the sister who is so stupid she can't remember anything. To add insult to injury, the secret he's been telling these girls is he's got holes in his socks and the story ends on how the third sister marries the prince and sits every night with a darning needle, repairing the prince's socks.

Now that's a tale which does not send out the right message to young girls.

Breakfast Cereal – 1 Mummy – 0

I have a bone to pick with a breakfast cereal.

Not my own cereal. I'm perfectly happy with weetabix. I'm talking about a brand new breakfast cereal I tried out on my daughter this morning. (It's brand new to our household anyway.)

The breakfast cereal in question – and here comes the naming and shaming bit – is Plum Fourgrain Apple and Apricot Porridge.

On first appearances this cereal looked like it could only be a positive addition to my daughter's breakfast repertoire. Fourgrain – sounds healthy therefore good. Apple – a staple flavour of many baby foods – therefore good. Apricot – my daughter's all time favourite food is apricot fromage frais so therefore in a round the houses kind of way, good. Porridge – familiar breakfast territory for my daughter and never fails to go down well in a variety of flavours – therefore good.

But my overall conclusion on this breakfast cereal – bad, oh so bad.

Now, I have a confession to make. This cereal has been sat in the kitchen cupboard for about two months now because one day about two months ago I came to use this cereal at breakfast time and read the user instructions on the back and was immediately put off. It said you had to mix the cereal with half your baby's usual milk and half warm water. To put it bluntly, what a hassle.

I put the box back and reached for the baby wheat biscuits instead. They only require the addition of warmed milk.

But then last night I was overcome by the desire to use this Plum breakfast cereal. For weeks now it has been sat on the top shelf of my daughter's food cupboard taunting me. 'Too scared to use me aye. Can't be bothered to warm up milk and water. What kind of lazy mother are you? Worried your daughter won't even like me after all that effort aye?'

Right, I thought last night. Enough is enough. There's a certain amount of security in feeding my daughter tried and tested meals I know she's going to like but for both our benefits it's good to introduce something new on a relatively regular basis.

I seized the box from the top shelf and read the instructions on the back again. Nothing had changed – it still required half milk, half water.

Never fear Tommee Tippee bottle warmer I thought, glancing over to where it sat patiently waiting to be loaded up with yet another bottle, this cereal isn't going to get its own way. I'm going to cheat the system and just add warm milk to it. Stuff the hot water. Only one bottle to warm up as usual Tommee Tippee.

Defeated by a box of cereal. The next morning I added the whole bottle of warmed milk to the cereal and it was still a similar consistency to cement. Desperately I added some cold water and stirred and stirred. Still cement sitting in a puddle of water. Yum.

'Breakfast time' I tried to cheerfully call to my daughter say in anticipation in her high-chair. Let it taste better than it looks, I prayed as the spoon of cement, I mean cereal, travelled to her mouth.

Success at first, but the cracks started to show halfway through the bowl, unusual for breakfast time when my daughter is usually ravenously hungry. When the messing around began I knew all was lost. Somehow, she's just too quick, she plonked her hand into the bowl and it come out completely covered in porridge – a porridge hand. Of course then my daughter decided to wave this hand around and lumps of porridge splattered all over the carpet. The rest she smeared over the table top of the high-chair until it resembled the concrete foundations of a house.

Not having any more, her pursed up mouth said. I couldn't blame her. The rest of the porridge in the bowl and the cereal box went in the bin.

I want to know what these Plum people were thinking. Why concoct a cereal which requires double the work to the majority of breakfast cereals in the morning? Time is of the essence when dealing with little rumbling tummies. It is obviously all about the consistency. It does require this delicate balance of milk and water as I found out.

But couldn't they have devised a cereal which required one or the other? Plum, I'm afraid you're blacklisted. You'll have no place at our breakfast table again.

What greater motivation to quit

Reality TV star Stacey Solomon smoking whilst pregnant has proved a huge talking point this week.

The first expression that springs to mind is people shouldn't throw stones in glass houses.

The sad fact is you only have to walk down any high street and see pregnant women hanging out of doorways smoking. Stacey Solomon seems to be a scapegoat here.

Of course no mums-to-be shouldn't smoke whilst they are pregnant. There is no two ways about it – they must give up. If it was a planned pregnancy then there is no excuse to still be smoking. A woman should not even be trying to conceive before she has kicked the habit.

If it was unplanned – well all efforts must be made to stop as soon as possible. Smoking is an addiction but at the same time it is within everybody's abilities to give up and what better incentive than because you want the best start for your unborn baby.

Many women say a sign they realised they were pregnant was because they no longer had the desire to smoke. That shows the body naturally knows what is good for it and so it must be biologically easier to give up whilst pregnant because every facet of your being must be saying it is wrong. If not, a good dose of will-power won't go amiss.

I think people are very short-sighted. They know what they are doing is wrong but because they can't physically see the effect their smoking is having on their baby they are somehow completely cut off from it. It suggests these people's minds are not completely attuned to becoming a mum. Being a mum is about making huge sacrifices and even is not smoking leaves you climbing the walls, at least you know you are not physically harming your baby.

Every cigarette is harmful to an unborn baby. Every time a pregnant woman smokes their baby's little heart has to pump extra hard to get enough oxygen. Each cigarette also contains over 4,000 chemicals which get passed onto the baby. Toxicology tests on newborn babies of mothers who smoked have found high levels of carbon monoxide in their bodies. Smoking can lead to all sorts of complications during pregnancy and after birth.

Is this perhaps down to lack of education? There will be some mums-to-be who are just not aware how seriously bad smoking during pregnancy can be. Others just don't appear to be able to process the information and relate it to themselves and their own baby. They treat it in the same way as they do lung cancer – it's not going to happen to them.

I just hope Stacey Solomon's behaviour doesn't somehow make smoking during pregnancy more acceptable. Since her appearance on the X-Factor a few years ago she has risen to fame and popularity as one of those air-head, funny yet well-meaning celebrity types which popular culture is so keen to latch onto these days.

The best outcome we can hope for for Stacey, her unborn baby and that sector of society that looks up to her, is that she stops smoking. Maybe in this way, more pregnant women will quit.

Ain't no mountain high enough...

My daughter turns one this month and will make the major transition from being a baby to a toddler.

Mentally and physically my daughter is already there. Every moment she gets she likes to be up on her feet. Now she has worked out she can pull herself up into a standing position by holding onto something, there is no stopping her.

Whenever she is put down she is not satisfied simply sitting on the floor. Instead, almost without fail, she will crawl over to the closest table, chair or human being and pull herself up.

This as a result has significantly changed her viewpoint on the world. She is starting to realise there is far more to life than sitting and crawling at floor level. With just a pull and a wriggle she can be up on her two feet like everybody else.

In this way she is realising she is just the same as mummy and daddy. She too can stand on her own two feet and benefit from the freedom and new opportunities that come with it.

With it has come brand new behaviours such as pulling herself up to stand in front of the TV table so she can view her favourite programmes at close quarters. She goes into the kitchen and pulls herself up by one of the cupboard handles and then opens the cupboard door.

When she is put in her cot for her post-lunch nap all too often I'll hear a commotion coming from her room only to peep in and see her standing up in her cot holding onto the bars. Quite a feat whilst wearing a sleeping bag.

Her high-chair is no longer just for sitting. Left in here too long and she manages to free her legs from the straps and kneel up, tentatively trying out what it would be like to stand with a toe, before mummy intervenes.

Sometimes there is no sitting her down at all. You tell her to bend her knees and her legs will lock out straight. You end up there, holding her up in a standing position until she finally decides that actually she may have a sit down after all. Good to see who's in charge in this relationship.

Luckily she has started to work out how to go from standing to sitting herself. Very slowly she will start to do the splits until she is just low enough to let herself drop without too much of a thud. It saves on tears and hurt bottoms.

She has attempted to climb up the stairs. This step mountain is no longer insurmountable. She has seen mummy and daddy climbing up there and in her mind there's no reason why she can't go up it too.

At first she started by standing with her hands on the first step but I had quite a surprise to come down the stairs one day recently to see her brazenly standing on that first step, her eyes weighing up the second. At this rate it won't be long before she works out how to clamber up the rest.

Ain't no mountain high enough to keep me from getting to you, mummy.

Broadcasting live from her hospital bed...

I couldn't do the splits ten weeks after giving birth.

I'm referring to TV presenter Kirsten O'Brien's appearance on 'Let's Dance for Sport Relief' on BBC1 on Saturday night.

But while presenters and judges alike were enthusiastic in their praise for her ability to be able to bound around the stage playing air guitar, I couldn't help but view the whole affair in a more negative light.

My initial thought, even before she started dancing, was she'll be lucky if her insides don’t drop out. Ten weeks is no time to have passed to be bouncing around in front of your own bedroom mirror, never mind in front of the nation.

Quite seriously, she will have been lucky to escape injury. It takes weeks and weeks for the elastin which enables you to be flexible enough to give birth in the first place, to return to normal levels. Whilst you are all 'elastined' up you have to be careful not to be lured into a false sense of your abilities. You can very easily rip or pull something while performing feats which were once beyond your command.

Guest judge for the night Tim Minchin joked that Kirsten was probably unable to do the splits before giving birth and he may not have been aware just how close to the mark he was.

I can't take it completely away from Kirsten O'Brien. Her energy levels were quite astonishing. She didn't appear affected by the sleepless nights and endless crying or the emotional roller-coaster you are taken on as a mum in those early weeks, yet I suppose it is easy to turn it on for the camera for an hour or so.

What does concern me slightly though is that three or four minutes on the stage on the Saturday night is the culmination of about a week's training. That means unless she put in less time preparing than the others, she was in that rehearsal room when her baby was nine weeks old. I actually hope her baby was with her because to be separated from your newborn for several hours at a time would be a bit of a wrench.

The thing is, these celebrities do do this. They are so quick to get back to work as soon as they have had a child. A lot of them are doing baby pics for OK magazine just days after birth but ten weeks is still quite early for a full on TV appearance, though correct me if I'm wrong as I'm sure there are celebrities who have returned to work sooner. They would claim they have a profile to maintain.

All I can think is what a sad state of affairs that their job means they can't have a few months bonding with their new babies before they return to work.

With their line of work often comes more money and the ability to hire nannies to look after the baby while they are away. And this is nothing new. You only have to watch an episode of 'Upstairs Downstairs' to see how little time the aristocracy spent with their own children, even the mothers.

After giving birth they literally handed over their babies to the staff and got on with their own lives again, just seeing their children at selected times of the day. It must have been such a shame to miss out on all those moments like bath time and feeding times which were all carried out by the maids. I suppose many of those women knew no different as they would have been brought up in the same way by their own mothers. Some of us may wish at times we had staff to look after our babies but in reality I'm sure our motherly instinct is telling us it is our job, not someone else’s.

I think celebrities do need to think to themselves whether they are returning to work a bit too soon. I mean, how far are they going to take this? Will we be seeing mothers returning to do TV performances the day after giving birth or presenters doing live links from their hospital beds?

As a society we shouldn't penalise celebrities for taking time out to be with their newborns. We should be understanding enough to realise they have a new baby and as a result should not be expecting their presence on the screen for a while. With the pressure off, these people may feel a little less inclined to make a comeback so soon.

Daddy Pig is a comic genius and other stories

Thank heavens for Peppa Pig. It shines like a bright star out of the general murk which is children's TV these days.

When my daughter first showed signs of properly watching TV and not just being attracted to the flashing box in the corner of the room, I knew it was time to say good-bye to the day-time TV which had become my friend since I began my maternity leave and embrace Cbeebies.

I held out no great hopes for this. If the children's cartoons I had caught a glimpse of on Saturday mornings were anything to go by I was in for a tough time of it. They were no match for the 80s classics like Super Ted, Banana Man and Thundercats that I grew up watching.

But amongst the Americanised, 3D, computerised nonsense which is the majority of kids television there are a few gems which I have to admit I enjoy and thankfully my daughter appears to be in complete agreement on which are the better quality programmes – it must be in the genes.

Leading the charge is Peppa Pig. I had every intention of avoiding this programme like the plague. Any TV programme which has its own board game and lunch box is one to avoid in my opinion. But after one scene caused me not only to laugh out loud but titter to myself the rest of the day, I realised it had won me over.

The scene is never going to sound funny on paper – you really had to be there – but it has been snowing in Peppa Pig land and Daddy Pig decides to go outside and check just how much snow has fallen on the ground. He opens the front door and it is very clear that it has snowed so much the whole of the doorway is blocked by snow. This doesn't stop Daddy Pig however, who plunges out of the door and into the snowdrift with a huge crunch. He returns moments later completely covered in snow declaring that there's quite a bit of snow out there.

My daughter's all-time favourite programme is Waybuloo. This is a programme of the same ilk as the incredibly irritating Teletubbies, of four computer generated colourful characters, broadly resembling actual animals, who teach children good morals, at the same time as playing peekaboo, practising yoga and greeting all and sundry with the words 'hi hi', which has become a completely acceptable and commonplace greeting in our own household as a result.

Mr Bloom’s Nursery is a programme more reminiscent of those I remember watching such as Sooty, Scrag Tag and The Herbs. Mr Bloom, who bares a striking resemblance to the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, teaches the 'tiddlers' gardening tips, while interacting with vegetable puppets Raymond the squash, Margaret the cabbage and Sebastian the aubergine, at the same time as teaching good morals – there's a running theme here – and encouraging everyone to recycle their leftovers on the compost heap.

But no programme captures my daughter's undivided attention more than Pointless. This is not a children's programme. It is a BBC teatime quiz programme hosted by comedian Alexander Armstrong. As soon as my daughter hears that theme tune music she sits herself right in front of the TV and is glued.

It must be something to do with the flashing lights, sound effects and bursts of music. And this is fine with me. It's one of the best quiz programmes on TV. Roll on 5.15pm.

Time to support the traditional family unit

Does David Cameron need any more incentive to make it easier for mothers to stay at home and look after their children.

The results of the Prime Minister's 'happiness survey' came out this week and they reveal that mothers who stay at home are as content and satisfied with their lives as those who choose to go to work.

In addition the survey, which Cameron employed as a means to measure well-being across the country, also shows the happiest people are traditional married families. Our Prime Minister made huge promises to support families when he took over running our country and so far little has been done to meet this promise.

Now, with the results of his survey back, surely he can have no excuse but start implementing some policies to make it easier for women to stay at home and look after their children if they wish.

It does not surprise me that mothers who stay at home and look after their children are as content and satisfied as those who go out to work. If anything I would have thought they would be more satisfied.

Any working woman who falls pregnant knows that in 18 months time they are going to be faced with one of the biggest dilemmas of their lives. Do they give up their career and stay at home and bring up their child or do they go back to work and miss out on being with their child full-time and also, in many cases these days, fork out huge amounts of cash on child care?

Either way a woman can never feel truly happy with the decision they make. If they stay at home there is the nagging doubt they should be at work, and if at work, they feel they should be at home with their children.

If however, there were tax breaks, more benefits or cash handouts to give vital support to families who find life tight on just a single income then this would ease mother's guilt about not going to work. There are some mothers who enjoy going out to work but I'm sure if you asked most working mothers whether, if they could, they would rather stay at home, they would answer yes.

Once you have had a child there is a real emotional pull towards being at home with your children full-time. We can spout all we like about feminism and equal rights but we can't go against nature. Women on the whole are nurturing, home-making creatures and of course they will feel their happiest in this environment.

I never thought I would see this issue in quite this way. Ideally, I always wanted to be a full-time mum because it seemed the correct thing to do but I didn't bank on how strongly I would feel the desire to do this once my baby was born.

I'm also not condemning women to a life chained to the kitchen sink. I think women's emancipation has come on too far for that. There is actually something empowering about giving up work. It is a bold decision to make and flies in the face of all that modern society dictates.

For almost two decades the government has been working under the assumption that mothers want to go out to work.

During that time we have seen increasing examples of youngsters running feral as their mums work two jobs to make ends meet. We have seen child care costs reach extortionate levels. Any money ploughed into sorting this issue out could be redirected straight into mothers' purses to allow them to give up work and look after their children themselves.

Families who are currently surviving on a single income and just making ends meet each month are still happier than many other sectors of society according to this latest survey.

We don't need any more equivocal evidence than that there needs to be far more support in this country for people to follow their traditional roles.

So I think David Cameron, it's time to step up to the plate on this one.