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Temperance at Tesco

Man walks into a Tesco, takes a six-pack to the counter and tries to pay. That's where the joke begins. Dominic Zenden, a 45-year-old spiritualist medium, was told by the cashier that he couldn't purchase the beer in case he gave some to his 15-year-old daughter, who was with him. Even after he assured the cashier the Budweiser was for him, she refused to ring it up.

A Tesco spokesperson said:

“We are doing lots of work to try to stop under18s getting alcohol, and one of the biggest problems has become adults buying for people who are underage. If our staff suspect that people are doing so, then we do not serve them. Obviously there is an element of common sense involved in making that judgment. It is not a blanket ban."

It's been a while since I was underage, but as I recall, usually the "adult" buying for under18s tended to be a skinny 19-year-old buying wine coolers for a carload of friends in the packing lot, not a father purchasing the King of Beers to drink at home. I think drinking the watery, flaccid-tasting Budweiser brand in general should be banned, but that doesn't allow me to intercede either.

Underage and binge drinking is a problem. But do we actually have so few ideas about constructive ways to curb it that we'll target parents legally buying alcohol when shopping with their children? It's as silly as prosecuting parents who allow their child a drink at home. This isn't about a retailer taking a stand in a public health issue. It's the same kind of impulse that leads waiters to refuse to serve a glass of wine to a pregnant woman. It's pure busybody-ness.

A love that dare not speak it's name.

Do you love your husband/partner? I do. My husband is called Pete and he's great. Indeed, I both love and like him. When we're together, we just kind of sigh, and stroke each other, murmuring "Thank God." And when we're apart, we ring each other every three hours, to say "I've got literally nothing to tell you", and kind of sniff at each other's telephonic pheromones. It really is a win/win/win/win/win situation.
But do you know who I can tell about this? No-one. No. One. You can't talk about how much you love your partner, and what a great father they are, because, by and large, no-one else seems to be saying it.
A couple of weeks ago, me and Pete dropped the kids off at school, and then left the playground together.
"You're holding hands!" one of the mums said, with an odd look on her face. "I can't remember the last time I held hands with _____."
Then the next day, another mum busted us for hand-holding in the park.
"You can tell you two haven't been together very long!" she said.
We've been together 13 years.
By and large, when other women talk about their relationships, it's usually in a very stressed manner - laced with resignation, and a stubborn, weary determination to just keep trying to make it work.
I thought I was in a particularly unlucky in my social circle, as I know of only two really happy relationships. Then I spoke to another friend, who lives further away, who said the only instance she had ever come across of a happy marriage was mine. I was completely horrified - although a bit smug, too, obviously.
Perhaps because of what appears to be the "general situation", I am incredibly cagey about talking about how happy I am, and what a thoughtful, loving, borderline semi-demented father Pete is. I wouldn't tell anyone about how, say, he used to get up extra early to make the girls' packed lunches, and would "protect" the sandwiches with a specially-cut cardboard insert - like they were from Pret a Manger. Or the insane lengths (3am flights, over-night trains, 4am driving-marathons) he'll go to to take the girls to school in the morning. I don't feel I can, when all the other women are tearful about their sex-lives, using phrases like "Feel like I'm going out of my mind with stress," and discussing partners who spend all weekend away playing golf.
Indeed, in a sweaty horror over coming across as smug, I'll only ever really take the piss out of Pete in the course of "wifely conversations." I'll pretend to be a bit exasperated about, say, the ludicrous size of his record collection - before sighing, and saying "But we muddle along, somehow."
So the question is - am I only hearing bad things about everyone else's partners because, actually, they're doing the same as me?
Or is it genuinely quite rare for people to still be properly besotted with their partners after 13 years, two children and a on-going, fundamental disagreement about how interesting Gardener's World is?

The end of the stay-at-home mum

The whole stay-at-home mums vs working mums conflict will soon be a thing of the past, mainly because no one will be able to afford to stay home.

The number of women in Britain becoming full-time mothers has fallen 24 per cent from 2.7 million in 1993 to just 2.04 million in 2008. That figure is set to drop below the two million mark by 2010 according to the joint YouGov and uSwitch research.

The research indicates increasing childcare and living costs have created a vicious circle where parents cannot afford to remain at home but also struggle to pay fees for nurseries which can cost as much as £8,000 per child.

And because one-earner families are becoming rarer now that a litre of milk costs the same as liquid platinum, bigger families are a status symbol. Or as Sarah Vine put it, 4 is the new 3. Frank Furedi, author of Paranoid Parenting and a professor of sociology at University of Kent, described it thus: to justify staying at home, stay-at-home mums have more children, demonstrating that they are busy and putting effort into their child-focussed "career".

So is the working mums vs SAHM mums debate become obsolete since Caitlin wrote about it in December?  And more importantly, if there are no more SAHM mums, who's going to organise the bisquits for the summer party?

How does your husband compare?

I thought my husband was hard to take sometimes, like when he spent the first six months after my daughter's birth going to "headwettings" three times a week. Or how he always leaves empty packs of Extra gum around the house. But marriage to Tony Blair is obviously no picnic, according to Cherie Blair's new memoirs as she reveals the reaction after a miscarriage.

Twenty minutes later Tony called back. The kids were OK, and he hoped I understood, but he had to tell Alastair. Ah, yes. Alastair. I lay there just waiting. Then the phone again: this time the two of them on the line. There were implications in not going on holiday, they said. It was known that we were going to France. It was all to do with Iraq. There had been talk that we might be sending troops in. If we didn't go on holiday, the concern was that it would send out the wrong messages. They had decided that the best thing was to tell the press that I'd had a miscarriage.

I couldn't believe it. There I was, bleeding, and they were talking about what was going to be the line to the press. I put down the receiver and lay there staring at the ceiling, as pain began to grip.

At times it's seemed that Cherie was universally loathed in the UK (I once saw her speak at an antiques event where she was booed by the well-dressed crowd); she's been demonised more than her husband. Yet this really shows what life is like for a politician's family and how much their private life is intertwined with the public job. In an era of self-aggrandising political memoirs, it's gutsy to write about the messier sides of life. I applaud her for it.

Is this bouncy castle too dangerous?

Everyone will agree that it's very very sad that an 11-year-old boy named Sam was permanently injured on a bouncy castle when a heavier boy accidentally struck him on the head with his heel. Yet the ruling yesterday by the High Court is bad news for parents and indeed the UK at large.

The mother who had hired the bouncy castle (and was hosting Sam) had given Sam permission to get on but had not watched him properly, the judge found. At the same time, the judge dismissed the case against Sam's father, who was also at the party and named as the third defendant, strangely enough.

Sam's parents said in a statement: "We appreciate that thousands of children enjoy playing on bouncy castles every year, and we would not wish to stop that happening, but it is vital that those hiring them supervise them properly if accidents like Sam’s are to be avoided."

But where is the parents' responsibility in this? Where is the acknowledgment that jumping on a bouncy castle, riding a bike, roughhousing in the sitting room has its risks? If you're worried that the kids will get too boisterous or are at risk, you have a responsibility as a parent to look after your child.

This kind of action is a part of the need to find someone to blame, no matter the incident. Coming up at the next summer fete or birthday party: legal disclaimers signed at the door?

The coolest kindergarten in Berlin

Pippi Longstocking inspired the design of this kindergarten in Berlin. Architecture students spent several days with children observing how they spend their time and how they communicate and then came up with this exuberant building.

As Coolhunter.co.uk reported: The Taka-Tuka-Land kindergarten was originally erected as a temporary solution, but with the fantastic Baupiloten approach to the refurbishment, it has become a permanent place for children. See more pictures and read about it here.

It sure beats those adapted Victorian buildings or '70s monstrosities that house so many nurseries.

Drinking in the Algarve

As expected, the plot thickens regarding the couple in the Algarve whose children were taken into protective custody. Today's story seems to say that the wife was ill but the husband was fine, that they arranged for the hotel to look after their children while she was taken to hospital and that the father was 'conscious, orientated and helpful with staff' at the hospital.

The discussion on Alpha Mummy has kicked up some theories about British drinking habits, mostly that we are all lushes. Get your two cents in here.

Women and book covers: Are we stupid?

We've had some interesting discussions about books lately on Alpha Mummy (see below for a wrap-up). I was just reading everyone's contributions to the classic childhood books post - look for a roundup of Alpha Mummy reader favouites soon.

In the meantime, there's an interesting piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the covers of books marketing to women. "The beautiful book is an increasingly rare thing. Most times you see one, the author is male. What does this say? All women writers deserve generic treatment while all men are special in their own way?""

Catch up on Alpha Mummy "books coverage" below.

The stages of a woman's life, according to the NYTimes bestseller list

A new kids book about cosmetic surgery

Caitlin Moran on the classic books of childhood

If having children ruins your taste in books

How much should you drink around children?

In case you suspected that all the fun stops when you have children, along comes the Portuguese government and removes all doubt.

Eamon and Antoinette McGuckin were taken to hospital and their kids - ages 1 through 6 - were taken into care temporarily after the adult McGuckins apparently passed out in a hotel lobby and bar. The plot thickens as stories report that Antoinette says she only had three beers. Friends and neighbours describe them as devoted homebody parents rather than as, y'know, ginhead chavs.

Even for the most upstanding of us, drinking in front of children poses problems. Seeing my parents drink married cocktails and sophistication in my mind long before Carrie ordered her first Cosmo. I remember my parents throwing parties for university faculty. My mother would wear her ankle-length multi-patterned skirt and turquoise jewelry, my dad would wax his mustache. They'd open the drinks cupboard to pour clear and brown concoctions into crystal tumblers that normally lived in the garage. We three kids could stay up and say hello to guests in our pyjamas. Later we'd sneak into the darkened kitchen after bedtime where we would listen to the clinking and chattering of the adult world.

These days most families I know are more likely to drink at barbecues or lunches were the children play while the grown-ups polish off a bottle of wine or several lagers. A friend recalls a fellow dad who had too much in front of his children. He felt so bad afterward that he's curbed his intake overall.

I've never gotten blotto around the under-18s but my daughter frequently brandishes her plastic stemware and says "This is my wine." Or she'll point to whatever her father is drinking (even if it's in a mug) and say, "That's daddy's beer." But so what? Drinking is part of the adult world. We drink responsibly. We don't drive afterward. And probably the thing that curbs our intake the most is knowing how we'll feel the next morning, when we'll have to play Barbies and football no matter how much our heads are pounding.

A big question is, does drinking around your children promote healthy drinking habits (witness the enduring story of Italian children learning to sip wine from their toddler years) or does it normalise a dangerous drug?

Do you drink around your kids and what is your stopping point?

Anyone for a Maypole dance?

It's May day, hooray. I remember as a child loving dancing round the Maypole at school, and at the village fetes near the village my aunt lived in in the Cotswolds. But now my children's extremely multicultural, politically correct school doesn't do Maypole - probably much too English, and I'm worried that my girls will never get to have a go. They know all about it thanks to Angelina goes to the Fair, which starts off with a bit of jolly Maypole dancing and they've heard me raving on about it like some old grannie so now I've got to make it happen. Any one out there know of some good Maypole options - or share my childhood nostalgia for those twisted coloured strings and complex interweavings? Am I going mad and my rosie memories totally misplaced? Will my girls hate it?

Was your wedding so rubbish you fancy having another one?

Ours certainly was. Let's be honest - your first wedding is like the first pancake of the batch: its bound to come out a bit wonky, however hard you try. You're so vulnerable to the stated expectations of your families and, statistically, still so young and stupid, the whole thing ends up a unsatisfying botch. Ours went so bizarro we ended up getting married in Coventry. Coventry! Coventry. And two days after Christmas, too - ensuring that all our guests fat and bloated from Christmas, and wouldn't get up and dance, making it the worst reception in history. I'd also lost our first baby (at 12 weeks; seems like nothing now, after two normal pregnancies, but felt like the end of the world then) three days before, on Christmas Eve, so went down the aisle with a sanitary towel the size of a mattress, off my face on codeine. And whilst wearing a filthy pair of 12-year-old Doc Marten sandals because I'd left my wedding shoes at home, in all the panic.
Then my father let slip to my sister he was considering putting her into care, and one of our guests tried to give my husband's very proper, Greek father some ecstacy, with the words "These are my pearls. Have one of my pearls."
Yes. All things considered, I'd like to do it again. Not least because we've got loads of new friends now - better friends; it's a definite upgrade - that I'd like to have around while we do some manner of vow renewal. I'd spend nearly all the budget on trying to buy in a load of 2004 Cote Chatillion Condrieu, wear a very tiny top hat, make a maudlin, rambling, drunken speech about how very much I love my husband and children and, this time, allow myself to cry and cry and cry. And then I'd crank up Paradise City by Guns'n'Roses, and stand on a chair pretending to be Slash with all the Filthy Mummies.
And maybe do this. You suspect that they went on to have a very, very good marriage.

Click here for the top 5 wedding videos.

What does the scandal in Austria tell us?

It's hard to get your mind around the horrific story of Josef F (pictured) and what has happened to his daughter. Two stories in the Times today discuss how such a macabre situation could have unfolded in this Austrian community.

Roger Boyes reports from Vienna about the uncurious society there; Stefanie Marsh and Bojan Pancevski write about the several child abuse scandals in Austria and how attitudes among police and politicians have played into those situations, pointing out that "in two of these cases, neighbours admitted to reporters that they knew the perpetrators and victims of the crimes only by their surnames."

Nannycams: Is it wrong to watch those that watch your kids?

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Cloth nappies: too worthy for their own good?

Cloth nappies are the Mooncup of parenthood. Worthy, green and incredibly impractical.

Theoretically, these items are great. Use and reuse the silicone rubber Mooncup instead of bleached disposable tampons. Swaddle your baby's bottom in soft cotton with a colourful leak-resistant cover instead of taping on a throwaway nappy that will take 500 years to degrade once it hits the landfill. That's probably why the washable nappy is more popular now than any time since the 1970s.

Yet just as I can't see myself rinsing out my Mooncup in the office sink standing next to my editor, I couldn't commit to spending valuable time before work, after work and on the weekends administering a cloth nappy regimen.

Do children ruin mothers’ taste in books?

It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times, when it comes to women’s reading habits, says a new survey. 

When women settle down and have children (promulgating the species – good) they abandon “serious” literature in favour of “light and easy” books and celebrity biographies (Victoria Beckham’s life story - very bad), according to research by Netmums.com and the Bookseller.

Forty per cent of 6,000 women questioned switched from weightier works to lighter fare after having children. More than half of mothers prefer “chick lit” or “anything that doesn’t take much effort”.
Netmums cofounder Siobhan Freegard, says this “mumming down” of literature has an impact on children and mothers.

Damn the teachers' strike

My daughter has only just gone back to school after the Easter holidays (Monday) and she's already off again today because of the teacher's strike, along with a million other kids in 91 local authorities as the National Union of Teachers calls a strike about its below-inflation pay settlement. How rude of everyone concerned to call the strike on a Thursday - they could have done it on a Friday so everyone could have had a long weekend? Or done it in a couple of weeks time when we've all had time to recover a bit longer from the holidays?

As it is, after two weeks of arranging play dates and trying to make sure she had something jolly to do while I was at work and she was on holiday - a feat of logistical planning any manager would be proud of, I was back on the case on Tuesday trying to find someone for her to play with this afternoon.

Tomorrow's school strikes.

Obviously this is a gigantic pain in the arse - although it did lead to the amusing side-effect of me, on Monday, asking Eavie's teacher, who is a red-hot baby-sitter on the side, if I could now pay her to have the kids on Thursday for the day.
But you do have to wonder - how clever ARE these teachers; these custodians of our children's minds? Anyone with half a brain would have scheduled the strike on Friday, leading to a nice long weekend for everyone. Tsk. Maybe we should have a word.

Read Eleanor Mills's blog post on the strike

How do you teach your children about religion?

What kind of religious education do you give your children? Religious school? Church every Sunday? Synagogue every Saturday? Or is religion not important at all to you? I grew up going to Sunday school, er, religiously. But weekends are such precious downtime for the family we never make it to church.

The question is how do I go about educating my daughter about Christian values?

To talk about the issue of religious education for children, Alpha Mummy invited Ruth Gledhill, the Times religion correspondent and blogger on the Times' Articles of Faith for a "Two-Fer", a video chat on the subject. Watch our discussion below and post your thoughts on teaching kids about God, Allah, G-d, humanist ideas or the belief that there's nothing out there beyond our experiences.

"Man colds".

For those currently experiencing the post-Easter holiday round of colds, as we are, this old clip is very pertinent.

Oddly inappropriate building brick

This building block appears to show places where one can hit a major artery in the average teddy. No wonder this country is going to the dogs.