The Semi-Detached Parent

The Semi-Detached Parent: Sharing access over Christmas

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Nov 28, 2011

Christmas is coming and the Semi-Detached Parent is getting stressed. LAST Christmas I spent every teeth-clenched, nails-in-palm moment telling myself that NEXT year the festive period would be FINE

The Semi-Detached Parent: 20 reasons why I am STILL single

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Nov 20, 2011

I told a friend how my dog sleeps in my (OUR) bed, adding "this is why I am still single."

The Semi-Detached Parent: Family glue

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Nov 11, 2011

Do you think more couples would stay together if they were TAUGHT how to have a good relationship?

The Semi-Detached Parent: Trying very hard not to SHOUT at my ex

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Nov 4, 2011

So I have been reading that book and trying very hard to be a good separated parent.

The Semi-Detached Parent: self-help books and the 5 Cs

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Oct 25, 2011

I do love a self-help book. Not because I read them from cover to cover, gulping down the advice and acting on it, but because they make you explore ideas. Mull over stuff you'd usually dismiss as pop-psych clap-trap.

The Semi-Detached Parent: And so to bed

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Oct 14, 2011

My son has started writing his Christmas list. Actually, he is amending it. He started writing it weeks ago. This week though, he posed a question about finances: how will the list be shared out, he wondered, now that daddy doesn't live here? Should he write a separate one to give to his dad?

The Semi-Detached Parent: Rage, fury and pillow punching

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Oct 7, 2011

Ah, the emotional roller-coaster of break ups and separations and single parenting! How is it that some days can go by like Christmas and a birthday rolled into one, full of joy and laughter and fun, and others are spent – mentally, if not physically – rolled up in a ball on the bed, sobbing into (and punching) a pillow?

The Semi-Detached Parent: What single parenting has taught me

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Sep 23, 2011

It's now a full two months since I officially became a single mother. This is what I have learned: That it is bloody hard work and I refuse to believe anyone would do it from choice (I am looking at YOU Miriam Stoppard and speaking in a Firm Voice).

The Semi-Detached Parent: The realities of holidaying as a single parent

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Sep 16, 2011

I've been away with my son on my own plenty of times before, and it has always been ace (Mainly. Apart from the time I chronicled here when he wanted to lie on the sofa exercising his thumbs on his DS for a week, whilst I wanted to go walking on the beach in the rain...)

The Semi-Detached Parent: Single parenting Hollywood style

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Sep 9, 2011

'I feel so much relief. I don’t think I realised how stressed I was being a single parent. It was really, really stressful. It’s not easy on anybody.' These are the words of Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon, interviewed in this month's Marie Claire mag, about how she is less stressed now she has re-married.

The Semi-Detached Parent: Are single mums demonised by society?

By Kelly Rose Bradford, Sep 2, 2011

Are single-mums stigmatised and judged by society? Last week, the singer Jamelia fronted a programme about Britain's 1.8 million single mums – of whom she is one – and branded it 'the club that no-one wants to join.'