A parent’s perspective

When I first left work to become a full-time parent, I recall my irritation at being labelled a ‘homemaker’ and not ‘full time mother’. I wanted acknowledgement that I hadn’t left a career to simply play house. I wasn’t choosing to shine brasses, mop floors and dance around with my feather duster, I was mothering.…

As I write, my wife is in the kitchen chopping vegetables, while somehow keeping our six-month-old baby daughter happy. The older two sit each side of me on the sofa, where I balance my laptop, homework, crayons and a colouring book. The annual St Valentine’s Day extravaganza is passed, with its notions that love is shown…

Faith in the Family

One Saturday morning, I resolved to help tidy my son’s bedroom – big mistake. Piled upon his bed I found: 12 ragged and much loved cuddly toys or ‘pets’ as he likes to call them, one toy samurai sword, three blankets, two odd socks, one cat shaped key chain, a bottle of water, one pocket…

A parent’s perspective

It is a strange thing to realise that you have become a sort of slave – albeit a fairly happy one, at least when you are tucking your peacefully slumbering little masters in at night. Perhaps the term, “indentured servant” is more accurate, because there is the prospect of eventual freedom, allegedly. With each new…

Sweet Treats

Evan O’Brien explains how a student charity group supports the elderly in Cork

Like many others across the country, I was horrified at the sentence received by Patrick O’Brien for the years of abuse and torment of his daughter Fiona to which he pleaded guilty. This week the Court of Appeal agreed with most right-minded citizens when it ruled that the sentence – 12 years in prison with…