What changes for the couple
Longitudinal studies of the transition to parenthood agree on one uncomfortable point: relationship satisfaction falls on average after a first child, and it falls further where the division of labour is felt to be unfair. It is not tiredness that damages a couple, it is the sense of carrying it alone.
Three things genuinely protect against this: discussing the division before the birth rather than after, naming the mental load, and keeping some time as a couple fixed in the week.
Starting a family
Becoming parents
The arrival of a child is one of the best-documented effects on a couple — and one of the least prepared for. What changes, for how long, and what makes the difference.
Not every family looks the same
Single parenthood, life without children, long-term singlehood, couples living apart: what each configuration actually involves.
Adoption
Adoption is not about finding a child for a family: it is about finding a family for a child. The whole of adoption law follows from that reversal, and it explains the waiting, the…
Surrogacy
Only two questions matter, and they are separate: where is surrogacy actually possible, and what will the birth certificate obtained there be worth once you are home? The second is almost…
Assisted reproduction
One couple in six has difficulty conceiving. Medicine has answered for forty years with a handful of well-identified techniques — everything else is eligibility, waiting, money and law, and…
Pregnancy
The clinical care looks much the same everywhere. What differs completely is who pays for it and how long you can stop working.
Childcare
It is the most structuring decision of the first three years: it sets the household budget, who goes back to work — usually the mother — and the rhythm of the whole family. And it has to be…
Step-families
The realistic goal of the early years is not love but mutual respect — and it usually takes several years.
Having a pet
A pet replaces nobody. But it imposes routine, physical contact and a reason to go outside — three things whose absence explains much of what we call loneliness.
Inheritance
On death, an estate is not divided according to what the family thinks fair but according to an order fixed by law — which a will can alter only within limits. Knowing which law applies is…
Matrimonial property and inheritance
Two decisions shape a lifetime: the property regime chosen on the wedding day, and the will most people never write.
Names
A first name carries a family, a decade and sometimes a whole country. Here is what to know before choosing one — or changing it.
Desire after a birth
Not six weeks, not the first period, not the night the baby finally sleeps: there is no date. What actually happens, on both sides of the couple.
My teenager is using drugs
You have just found something, or somebody has told you something. What you do in the next forty-eight hours matters more than anything else — and the first thing to do is to do nothing…
When your teenager's first relationship begins
What to say, what to leave unsaid, which health steps actually matter — and what the law lets your daughter do without you.
Drugs and addiction
What these substances actually contain, where they come from, what they do, how to spot use and how to get out. Alcohol, tobacco and screens belong here too: the line between legal and…
Screens and digital use
Whether so-called internet addiction exists is still debated among researchers — but some patterns of use are now formally recognised as disorders.
Running a family
And afterwards
When adolescence arrives
Raising a child together
- Agree the main rules together, apply them separately.
- Do not correct your partner in front of the child. Have that conversation afterwards.
- Protect each other's sleep in turn. Chronic exhaustion in one partner underlies most of the conflict of the first year.
- Accept practical help. Asking is not an admission of failure.
- Watch for postnatal depression, in fathers as well as mothers.