The Cityparents Blog

Our daughter Isabella was born in May 2019. She was due at the end of August. My previous two blogs charted how my wife and I struggled through the shock of having a very premature baby, before we we... Read More

How's your summer been so far?  I'm guessing it's not been quite like you anticipated when you planned it earlier this year, or even last year.  We were looking forward to a sun... Read More

I have lots of useless trivia in my head (names of the Bond films in order and who played Bond in each, check), but one anecdote has recently come back to mind.  Years ago, I heard that lion tam... Read More

Over the last few weeks, all of us have been adjusting to the new reality of working from home, social distancing, and the like. I thank my lucky stars that my boy is not yet of school age, so at lea... Read More

We’re coming up for 5 years of parenthood and 10 years of being a couple. Or can you add the age of the second child to the first and say you’ve been a parent for 6 1/2 years? Then when w... Read More

It wasn't quite a New Year's resolution as I don't tend to go in for those (why not try to tweak things as you go along?).  But I had thought to myself that I should try and be usefu... Read More

Life with a pretermer baby was hard enough. When our baby daughter Isabella arrived at an exceptionally early 24 weeks, as I described in my previous blog post, I had to adapt quickly to the new norm... Read More

Christmas is a magical time of year for children, when the Big Man in Red wriggles down the chimney to deliver presents to good little boys and girls. I have fond memories of shooting downstairs on C... Read More

A new phase of family life will begin in a couple of weeks when my wife goes back to work part-time after maternity leave. With over 13 months off, she’s made the most of it (a line from Elmer ... Read More

When your wife is pregnant, as a prospective father there are million and one things rushing through your anxiety ridden brain. A preterm baby is not one of them. Dealing with this level of trauma wh... Read More

Last August, I decided to go part-time, dropping down to a four-day week.  A number of the females in our team have being doing that for some time now, and our team leader is very supportive, so... Read More

I’m sure that many of you reading this have some kind of routine established with your children – set times of day when you get them up, have food, get them ready for school (or similar),... Read More

It’s a balmy summer evening and I’m lying on my acupuncturist’s couch in leafy suburban London. I’ve got needles stuck in me and tears running down my face. We’ve just h... Read More

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘19 - that’s the preschool class - if I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. We’re in the south of France, w... Read More

For a number of reasons, it became apparent last year that I wasn’t going to progress in my then-current role.  When I had originally applied for the position my employer had been sceptica... Read More