PART ONE Bricks and Mortar

      Laying the Foundations: An introduction

      Families, eh? What a nightmare: it’s all kids, marriages, oversized cars, arguments, stressful holidays, affairs, the school run, snotty noses, admin, tantrums and break-ups—who the hell would ever want to go through that?!

      Well, funnily enough rather a lot of us take a stab at Family Life, and despite what you may have heard in the press about divorce rates rocketing, all men being bastards and children being less desirable than global warming and shell suits, families are having something of a revival. Hurrah!

      After decades of monumental fuck-ups caused by wanting to Have It All, leaving a legacy of rich divorce lawyers and psychotherapists, it seems that an increasing number of people are thinking there may be more to life than high-powered careers, flat-screen TVs, mind-blowing sex and holidays in Barbados. Not much more, obviously, but a little, and perhaps something worth putting a good deal of effort into.

      It is almost impossible to define a family these days, as any sense of what’s ‘normal’ vanished years ago. I had a conversation recently with a friend who talked about her daughter’s ex-stepmother’s girl-friend. I got there in the end, but it was pretty confusing. Families now come in all shapes and sizes: there are married parents, stepparents, step-children, cohabiting parents, gay couples with kids, small families, gigantic families, happy families, miserable families, and families you really wouldn’t want to get stuck next to on a campsite. My own set-up of being married with three kids is probably far from the norm these days, but it works (mostly) for us.

      Whatever the actual bricks and mortar of a family, and however you go about living in it, two things seem pretty clear: firstly, married (or effectively married) people are generally happier, healthier and more contented than those who aren’t; and secondly, children brought up in stable family homes grow into happier, healthier and more contented adults. And thus the cycle continues.

      But keeping it all hanging together—through the years of child-rearing, career changes, financial wobbles and the inevitable middle-age spread—is really hard, and I am yet to meet a single married person with kids who doesn’t occasionally want to buy a one-way ticket to Rio and live it up a little! Happily these feelings of frustration, boredom and an interest in sexy beachwear usually pass quite quickly and we all get back to making packed lunches and putting away fifty pairs of socks before we get as far as finding our passports.

      My theory as to why we find family life so challenging, even though generations before us stuck together like limpets, is that we are not trained or encouraged to commit to anything. Our lives are geared towards change, and fast change at that: we can return goods to shops should we decide blue isn’t really our colour, throw things away if we don’t like them any more, choose between a hundred television channels and swap electricity suppliers in one phone call. Nothing is ‘forever’ and choice is everywhere: if we don’t like it, we move on and get something better…until we don’t like that any more either. Our attention spans now compare with those of goldfish, and our children’s are even shorter.