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The myth of Father Christmas dies earlier than you think

The Times's esteemable Carol Midgley chimes in with very timely question today: when do kids stop believing in Santa Claus?

I know all ya'll have an opinion on this too. Let us know what you think. Carol writes:

When do children work out that there's no Father Christmas? At age seven? Eight? Nine? Forty three? When they lay in the dark, eyes shut, pretending to be asleep and make the sobering discovery that "Santa" has exactly the same BO problem as Daddy?

Well, I fear it is younger than we think. Much younger. I have no hard evidence for this unhappy hunch - just the knowledge that four-year-olds now use the Internet more expertly than I do and that I know of a woman whose six year-old son recently claimed that he'd known Santa was a lie for OVER A YEAR. "It was your writing on all the gift labels", he shrugged as she clawed at her own face remembering that children should never ever be underestimated, particularly where presents are concerned. But his key line was yet to come. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd be sad," he said, tenderly.

Oh God. Here's a weird and unnatural thought. What if children suss out the truth years before we think they do but play along so as to spare our feelings? So it's not us humouring them but them humouring us?

5 money-saving vouchers for parents

If - like me - you're still putting together your Christmas and doing last-minute shopping, you are running out of time, may have already lost your sanity but you can at least save some money with these coupons from community voucher website VoucherHub.com. Best of all, they're not for 45p off something totally useless from a brand you've never heard of, but places you might shop anyway.

1.       15% off at JoJo Maman Bebe

 2.       Free delivery orders over £30 at Mini Barratts

3.       10% off orders over £120 at Mothercare

4.       5% OFF all Trampolines, Sledges, Toboggans, Mini Skis and Snow Equipment at Super Tramp

5.       £10 off when you spend £80 at Babyworld

Nativity report 2009:

Every year, there is no more emotional rollercoaster-y - to use the technical term - event than the Nativity. Little wonder they made that film about it. I always cry at least once - although, to be fair, I do also laugh at least ten times; often to disapproving looks from surrounding parents. Hey! Lighten up! Pretty much the only pay-back from having kids - until they become successful lawyers, and buy you a new car  - is laughing at them. Cash those chips in, I say. Cash those chips in laughing into your scarf, five rows back.

As I've explained before, the great bitterness of my childhood was that I never took part in a Nativity myself - I thought I was guaranteed Mary Material, and then the NUT went on strike and our Nativity was cancelled. Even mentioning it now makes me genuinely quite tetchy. I can't tell you what an unbecoming grimace I have on my face.

As a consequence, I have a wildly unrealistic idea of what being in a Nativity is actually like. For instance - having watched In Bed With Madonna at a pivotal age, I can't help but believe that, just before they come on stage, sundry 6-year-old shepherds, Kings and angels all gather in a circle, holding hands, and Mary chews gum whilst saying "Dear God, give me the strength to put on an extra little something here, in my home town," as Warren Beatty watches, bemused, from the corner.

Live Q&A: A non-gamer's guide to buying videogames

With Xbox, Nintendo DS and Wii games becoming more sophisticated and varied, it's hard to know the right Christmas gift for the gamer in your life. Which ones are good for young kids, what's the hottest thing for your favourite uni student?

For many parents, a big question is "video games or not video games".

Join us on Tuesday Dec 15 at 12pm for a discussion and Q&A (Times Mobile users, please go to http://bit.ly/gameguide). We'll have as panelists:

* An expert from GAME, the high-street retailer

Nigel Kendall, the Times's online technology editor

Jennifer Howze, lead blogger on Alpha Mummy

Sign up now to get an email reminder when it's about to start. Then come and lend your opinion, ask your questions or just see what everyone else has to say.

A daughter's insight

And now for something completely different...

Recently a mother emailed me with a piece about friendship written by her daughter. Her daughter is grown up - from reading the essay her daughter wrote, I suspect that she's more grown up than I am - and I found it moving that mother and daughter have a close enough relationship that they can Talk About Things.

This is the dream I have of my relationship with my own daughter: that when she grows up she'll naturally reach for the phone or email to share stories from her life. Not necessarily the "I don't know where my knickers are from last night" although I'm not picky. It will be nice if she shares the type of insights that Gill's daughter Natalie does here.

On Friendship: a love letter

I’ve sworn off best friends.

That sounds dreadful, I know. Or at least, dreadfully capitalist, as though they were just commodities you can give up for lent, like booze or chocolate. In some ways, they are actually quite similar, I suppose; you get great enjoyment from them, they make life infinitely more bearable and help you get through the bad times, and too much of them can be very bad for you.

My last two best friends have both, whether by coincidence or design, ripped the hinges off my bathroom door. And the door off the door frame. I can’t help but see this as some obvious, cliché sort of metaphor for the trails of havoc and destruction they left sprawled through my life. The first time this sort of thing happens, you simply accept it as a moderately upsetting event.  So you fix the door and you get on with things. But when the second set of hinges go, you start to question it. 

Christmas: 'Tis the season for married sex

Gigi at Mumsrock has written in about what she sees as the most important thing to give this Yuletide season. Wrapping optional.

What I find interesting is that this mirrors what I was told by a woman who works with a charity that benefits working class women with families. "It's a totally different mindset," she said, referring to sex within marriage for her clients. She described being mystified by middle-class women who talk about their sex drive evaporating after kids arrive. "These women I work with see it as something you just do," she explains. Friday night, the husband gets home and wants to relax, have a drink, eat his favourite food and, basically, get a leg over. "They say, 'Hey, it keeps him happy and usually once we've started I enjoy it too'." 

Read what Gigi has to say about it and tell us what you think.

With the touchpaper that is Christmas looming ever nearer, the prospect of tidings of comfort and joy between you and your partner seems less and less likely. From fall-outs over who is doing all the work (it’s not you, it’s me), why you have no wish to negotiate up from spending 3 days with the in-laws, and why you don’t like tinsel on your tree (it’s tacky - everyone thinks so), your relationship may be heading into dangerous territory. So why not avoid a meltdown around the tree this year by exercising your conjugal rights (but not by the tree - it will upset the kids).

I was discussing sex in long-term relationships with a friend the other day. Like you do. And, marriage my friend argued, was a contract, and as part of that contract, a husband and wife promise to love, honour (or not) and obey each other, which includes, according to my friend, having sex. ‘Sex’ she told me, was a ‘contractual obligation’ that’s why it’s called a conjugal right (not a privilege).

Now this friend is a modern woman, she’s strong, she’s independent. She’s certainly no Betty Draper, but this was her thing. If you want to have a good relationship - treat sex like a contractual obligation. Like paying the congestion charge, or not smoking in front of your best friend's newborn.

Thanks to the headlice experts

As I sit here, head greasy from Hedrin, hair thoroughly moisturised with tea tree conditioner and fine combed to its eyeteeth, I want to send out a big thank you to the fellow Tweeters out there who chimed in with excellent louse-ridding advice.

To distill it for your here:

* Get a really good comb. I have a plastic one that seems to work just fine (@dalzielb laughs at this - we'll see who's right). But NittyGritty gets plaudits as the platinum-standard

* Treat hair with Hedrin. Slippery, gloopy and only good for "wet-look" styles, but effective

* Comb, comb, comb with lots of conditioner (a friend recommended Sainsburys 59p tea tree kind - which has a nice smell and seems to do the trick)

* Repeat combing every two days for two weeks

* Re-apply Hedrin after 7 days.

A special shout-out to @dalzielb, @treatheadlice, @nonstopmama, @littlestuff and everyone else who responded with words of encouragement via Twitter.

Dulwich Divorcee has written about her trials, Caitlin Moran has shared her tips here on AM (popping the little buggers between your nails is part of the fun) and Sarah Vine finds that they infest her dreams. Hairforce in London even has a delousing service. 

Got more tips? Share them here. I have a feeling I'll need them.

Missed out on the conversation? You should follow Alpha Mummy or me on Twitter - www.twitter.com/alphamummy or www.twitter.com/jhowze.

What it feels like to be a married single parent

Potty Mummy, who writes The Potty Diaries blog, has become a particular type of single parent recently. Dad is there but not there. Do you recognise this role?

 

Holding a family unit together in the midst of the seemingly interminable credit crunch means battling against a host of problems that many of us never foresaw when we set up home. We're already used to dealing with the stresses of an every day life to the power of 10 due to the digital age (come on; when was the last time you turned your mobile phone OFF?).  We're trying to meet the impossibly high expectations of being a modern woman; Jools Oliver in the nursery, Nigella in the kitchen, Kate Moss or Dita von Teese in the bedroom - depending on your inclinations - and whichever of the Sarahs' (Brown or Cameron) you happen to prefer at work.

 

Now though, in addition to all this, an increasing number of women have been thrown into the role of weekday sole parent as their partners, forced out of their jobs by the credit crunch, earn their contribution to the family's bread and butter elsewhere. As in, somewhere that requires them to be away from home 5 days a week or more. 

 

It's not a new phenomenon, of course.  People have been commuting away from their families for time immemorial, and you could argue that it's not so different in real terms from the excessive hours many of these same people previously worked in the City.  But sharing a home with a person who's there briefly in the morning to interact with their children before they leave for work and not home until 10.00pm after an exhausting day in the office, whilst also fraught with problems, is a very different kettle of fish to being the only adult in the house and 'having the con' from Sunday night to Saturday morning each and every week.

 

Are single-sex schools a good idea?

I went to a mixed school as did my husband,so that's what we've chosen for our daughter, at least for lower school. But I've wondered if a girls' school would be good for her when she's older.

Some say children thrive in single-sex environments, where there aren't the distractions of the opposite sex. Others say girls-only or boys-only classes (and playgrounds) create pressure cooker worlds of bitchiness and bullying.

On School Gate, Sarah Ebner has talked to several educators about the effect of single-sex education. She writes:

The traditionally accepted view has been that girls schools can benefit girls educationally, but that boys' schools somehow produce boys who are repressed! In recent years, that orthodoxy has been challenged by many people who fear that boys are getting a raw deal educationally, and need to regain their confidence and be taught differently (and so separately.)

We're debating the topic today at 1pm with some experts in the field on School Gate. Join Louise Robinson, head of Merchant Taylors' School for Girls in Crosby and member of the Girls' School Association; Janette Wallis from the Good Schools Guide; John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers; and Matty Sowinski-Brown, who's in the Upper Sixth at Poole Grammar School for Boys for what's sure to be a rousing conversation.

The debate is using CoverItLive live blogging, so you can jump in with questions for the experts, your opinions and responses to other people's comments.

Sign up now to get a reminder just before it starts.

The 50 best console games this Christmas

My stepson is jonesing for an Xbox this Christmas but this leaves me in a quandary - what kind of game to get him? The only ones I've heard about are of the "shoot innocents in an airport" variety so I'm a bit at sea. Nigel Kendall - the Times online technology editor and brilliant blogger on Tech Central - has saved my day at least with this list of the best console games, broken down by category (Family and Adult) and platform (Xbox, Wii, Nintendo DS, whatever else there is - I don't know, I still play Pong on my mobile).

Some colleagues were "reviewing" Just Dance last week, which was amusing for the rest of us. Check it out and if there are any you can recommend, leave a comment here or on the article. Please, I need all the help I can get. 

50 best console games for families and adults

The Nazis - A Warning From History

Just one small piece of warning, at this time of year - information hard-won, believe me you, as I survey my wrecked tights, saw-dust-filled front room, borderline tearful lodger, drunkenly-listing tree, and clock that reveals we have been at this for FOUR HOURS: MEASURE THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE, VIZ FITTING INTO YOUR TREE-HOLDER,  BEFORE YOU PURCHASE IT.

    That is all. Merry Christmas. I need a gin.

It's time to take risks with our children

I’m in Spain writing a piece for the Times’s website and I caught the last few minutes of a Newsnight last night on Spanish TV. It featured esteemed professor of sociology Frank Furedi, author of Politics of Fear, Therapy Culture and Paranoid Parenting, talking about our outsized fear of risk in modern life, especially as it relates to children. Watching their discussion made me extremely happy to be living in the UK.

Not only do we have newscasters like Jeremy Paxman asking questions and follow-up questions and further follow-up questions (compare with most soft-ball interviewers on American TV) but you have academics like Furedi challenging the popular thinking that when it comes to children we need to be more afraid, more careful and more alarmist.

Furedi spoke to Paxman about the issue of risk and how we now tend to think of risk as something that can and should be avoided at all costs. A child falls down, we look for the person who pushed him; somebody trips, we blame the step.

Christmas comes but once a year - thank God

 

Arrived at my daughter’s school this morning to find that I had failed on not one, but two counts.

Firstly, she was supposed to bring in a Christmas tingle. This, for those of you who don’t know (i.e. me) is an orange with a candle stuck in it, and lots of sweets on swizzle sticks poking out. Looks like a child’s representation of a deadly virus. Anyway, I must have missed that particular communiqué (every day brings another flurry of instructions in the book bag, most of which seem to go missing), because as all the other little children walked proudly into the classroom bearing theirs, mine was bereft. 

She was also supposed to arrive with a completed lamb costume for her starring role in the Christmas play. I had big plans for this one. I went all the way to Ikea (a deep sacrifice, I think you’ll agree) and purchased one of their cheap-as-chips fluffy white throws, intending to fashion it into a sheep-like tabard, complete with hood and ears. Of course it all went horribly wrong, and the thing unravelled all over the carpet, much to the Jack Russell’s delight. Now I have a shop-bought one on order (which is what I should have just done in the first place instead of pretending to be some kind of domestic goddess), but it hasn’t arrived yet. And so, in desperation, I proffered the half-made one to her teacher, with a mumbled explanation about this one being a “temporary” costume, just for rehearsals (the actual play isn’t until the 10th). I left in no uncertain terms: wearing the Bad Mother hat of shame.

Next challenge: a pair of stripy pyjamas for my son’s Innkeeper. Even I can’t screw that one up – surely.

How do you get a boy to watch a "girl's movie"?

The Times's David Hutchinson recently travelled to New Orleans with Disney to try out new games (pictured right) related to the company's next movie. It looks like a sure winner from what David say. There's only one problem....

Dave writes:

In my household, weekdays encompass steamed broccoli, educational reading and limited TV and computer time. This all changes on Saturday or "Daddy day" as it's aptly named, when wrestling, burgers and video games are permitted by my wife as long as we are out of her hair - I get to indulge my love of kids' films and video games. (I recorded 'Rolf's Cartoon Time' religiously onto well worn VHS tapes as a child, and have a decades-long addiction to the Mario series of games.) I love to line up at the cinema with my six- and four-year-old sons to see whatever new candy-coloured kid-friendly treat is being shown. Essentially I spend Saturdays reducing my normally well-behaved boys, to feral barbarians in a matter of hours.

Warning: the 17 most-wanted toys this Christmas

In some place - probably an idyllic village in Sweden - there are children who are thrilled to receive a sewing kit, or some biodegradable modelling clay, or anything knit-you-own, grow-your-own, or sustain-your-own. But here, in the real world, children are still drawn to three main areas of toy manufacture: noisy, shiny or messy, or, if you’re really lucky, all three. With that in mind, here is the top 17 toys to watch out for your children will be asking for this Christmas.

1) Spa Factory™

Every so often, a product comes along that is equally as thrilling for the child as it is horrifying for the parent. Giving girls the ingredients to make their own face masks, nail varnishes, and aromatherapy treatments, and then encouraging them to slather them on their own and their friends’ faces, is surely, if you’ll pardon the pun, a recipe for disaster. Sticky, messy, sparkly, and with a somewhat questionable message about female beauty – this one is sure to be a winner with little girls all over the country.
Spa Fantasy™ Aromatherapy Fountain (RRP £29.99)
Spa Sleepover Party for Three (RRP £24.99)
Spa Fantasy sets (from £7.99)
All available from leading online retailers

2) The Star Wars Force Trainer

This item is being heralded as the one to watch this Christmas. It has been long awaited by those in the Star Wars know, and its release this Christmas is set to cause a bit of frenzy. For those less up-to-date with Jedi happenings, the Force Trainer is a headset that uses the technology from hospital EEG machines to measure the aspiring Jedi’s beta-brain waves (emitted while concentrating) and powers the machine accordingly. While it is undoubtedly a bit unnerving that they would put such sophisticated technology in a toy, at £99.95, it is a steal for the hours of silence that it will buy, as children stare ferociously at an unmoving ping-pong ball.
The Star Wars Force Trainer (RRP £99.95)

How do successful women keep their husbands happy?

This week an American journal called Sex Roles has published a report on Female Breadwinners. In America nearly a third of households have a woman bringing in the main wage; in the UK 11 per cent of women outearn their men – predicted to be 25 per cent or more by 2030 (following the trends of girls massively outperforming boys at school and university and the consequent genderquake in the professions: already 60 per cent of new solicitors are women).

Of course being a mum and the main source of the family income is not an easy gig; I call it doing the double shift. The researchers found that many women denigrate their husbands’ contribution around the house to make themselves feel better about their absence.

It is true that many FBWs are superwomen – I bumped into one at a party the other day who told me that for years she had earnt all the money but also organised absolutely everything around the house; her husband was supposed to be an architect but didn’t do much of that. She would be shooting up to London on the train from the family home in Surrey to put in a sixteen hour day while arranging the kids’ play dates and running the family shop from her Blackberry.

The research suggests that women do this to still feel involved with their families while being absent and say their husbands are useless around the house to make themselves feel better.

Travelling with baby liveblog: holiday tips and advice

Christmas getaways, winter sun breaks, ski trips - a whole host of holiday activities tantalise over the next few months, yet sometimes parents of young children put off travel because of perceived hassle and fear that carting this little thing smaller (and more precious) than your best handbag to exotic and unpredictable environs might not be such a great idea.

Pish posh, says Alice Griffin, author of the new book "Tales from a Travelling Mum" about her escapades around Europe with child in tow. So what has she learned? At noon on Friday Alice will be liveblogging along with Linda Jones, editor of havealovelytime.com and one of the contributors to "Tales...". They'll be sharing their stories and tips, and we look forward to hearing yours too.

Set a reminder below and we'll see you then!

You should follow us on Twitter.

Dilemma: what to do when your child is a bad loser

In our house, the Monopoly board is the equivalent of a loaded gun. After the popular reign of Uno, the board game has hooked us and we've been playing a lot. But it's unearthed a dark side - the sore loser. Tantrums, tears, whingeing. And for once that's not the adults.

It's a common problem. Young children have trouble losing the way they have trouble sharing. But by the time they're in school, you hope they are on the way to taking to the rough with the smooth.

This article links being a sore loser with a host of other problems, such as an inability with forming and maintaining friendships, which makes sense because nobody likes that kid who threatens to quit everytime someone else scores.

These kids have TOO MANY SODDING TOYS

My husband and I argue on only four issues: the correct way to load a dishwasher, the enjoyability levels of The Nolans' back-catalogue (he's wildly pro - I get so angry hearing them I could kill a hen WITH MY BARE HANDS), whether it's quicker to get to Birmingham by train, or by car (OF COURSE IT'S QUICKER BY TRAIN, IT'S OBVIOUS, DON'T START THIS AGAIN I WILL GET LEMON), and the kids' toys. 

Personally, I think a child needs two dolls - so that they can go on adventures together - a pencil, and a notepad. That's it. Everything else is decadent Western corruption. When I was a child, we made our own amusements: drinking vinegar pretending it was whisky, flooding the garden with a hose, spitting contests. Punching each other really quite hard. Permanently mentally disturbing each other with constant, low-level psychological warfare. We didn't have Hannah Montana wigs, or Pixel Chix, or, or ... Puppies In Our Pockets. We made bows and arrows out of Rosebay Willowherb (that were rubbish), glue out of flour and water (that was wholly ineffective) and papier mache objects that, for some reason, never really dried out, and rotted on the windowsill, emitting horrible, oddly turnip-y odours.

7 lies people tell new dads

New parenthood is always a fraught time - especially if you listen to all the advice you're getting. Tom Wright, how just became a daddy for the first time, has this advice to pass along. Got some of your own? Add it below.

There’s something about becoming a parent for the first time that brings out the worst in people. Everybody has a bit of advice, the most prevalent one being that “Your life will never be the same”, usually said in that scary hollow intonation reserved for horror movies. What they really mean to convey is, “Your life is over.”

What’s with the bad attitude? As a new dad I’ve already discovered that initiation into parenthood is hard at times, but it’s also fun and rewarding, and the process for getting pregnant wasn't all that bad either. The advice the helpful people give fathers has its own particular man-tinge. So let me address the favourite topics of the naysayers, in order.

Nappies: 

They say: You'll be elbow deep in awfulness all the time

In reality: First couple were tricky but after that not a problem. Just watch out for the wild spray.

Money worries: 

They say: You'll never go out again.

In reality: You do need to sort your finances out, getting on top of debt is a good idea but your child does not need a brand new everything. Ebay will be your new best friend.