TheZookeeper's Blog

The important thing to remember when you divulge information to your teenage daughter in a bid to help and advise her is that it doesn’t always remain between yourselves. Chances are when your beloved daughter is feeling a lot better, she may use your embarrassing disclosures against you. Because teenagers are mean. And that’s just what they do. More than a few mortifying facts I revealed...

I gave up my job when I became pregnant fifteen years ago and since then I have devoted all my time and effort into looking after my four children, running my home and agonising over whether I made the right decision at the dawn of the new millennium. Up until then, I knew the stresses of the workplace as well as anyone else, and yet the fact I apparently ‘bowed out’ of the rat race to become...

I’ve put my son under surveillance in recent weeks. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t been up to anything. (Not that I know of anyway. Damn it, now I’m worried.) No, it’s more of a social experiment, I suppose. I’m trying to understand him, you see. I’m attempting to get to grips with what makes him tick, what sets him off and why I’m always the last to know what’s going to make him...

My daughter is turning 13 next week and her father appeared to be in meltdown about it. And despite my best intentions, he eventually managed to send me completely over the edge as well. While my daughter planned her first teenage party, my husband drafted a contingency plan on how to deal with the next six years. Whether he watched too much Jeremy Kyle on his days off or inexplicably schooled...

I’m often left mortified when I see a look of delight cross my children’s faces after I reveal I’m vacating the house for a couple of days. While I wish I could shrug it off, I’m irritated that they don’t realise my constant nagging, non-stop worrying and endless demands could be a little easier to deal with if they just ‘manned up’ a bit. Or maybe, just maybe, if they listened to me...

One of the things I told myself before I became a mum was that I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, allow my own insecurities to become my daughter’s insecurities. I recently learned that I failed spectacularly on that point. Finding my 12-year-old twisting in front of the mirror, lamenting the size of her bum in a new school skirt reminded me just how much I failed. I’ll be frank here, my...

With four children under one roof, it’s hardly surprising the phrase ‘sibling rivalry’ comes up every now and again. Much of it passes me by, if I’m honest. Home wouldn’t be home without the sound of children bickering over a computer game or taunting each after over who’s more accomplished in the latest neighbourhood craze. In a small way, I welcome the (mostly) good natured...

My 12-year-old daughter Rebecca came home from school the other day in a state of mild distress. Forlorn, morose and appearing in desperate need of a hug, she finally admitted that she felt ‘left out’ by her friends. I doubt there are many women out there who have made it to adulthood and not experienced the twinge of hurt that can accompany this feeling of isolation. Whether it happened in...

While myself and my husband of sixteen years have yet to reach a stage where we designate one evening a month to sex, it’s fairly safe to say that we’re not quite as amorous as we were when we met in our twenties. And I’m going to be honest here, I prefer it. Don’t get me wrong, I fancy my husband every bit as much as I did when I met him 21 years ago, but sex round the clock can be...

I have a two-year-old son who won’t go to sleep unless the hoover is humming beside him and he’s clutching a big black stone which he unearthed in our back garden. You become so used to your children’s foibles and eccentricities that it’s only when you say them out loud you wonder whether they’re actually a few sandwiches short of a picnic. This was brought home to me last week when I...