Anyone who can balance her toddler on her hip, while holding the largest Hermes handbag, and while sporting the highest-heeled platforms or stillestoes money can buy is a superwoman, period.
But as far removed from a normal life as we think celebs might be, Victoria Beckham of all people was quoted in the Mirror saying her family’s move to the US has been something of a godsend, as it allows her to work from home – coordinating the Beckhams’ business empire.
She said: “One of the nicest things about living here is …

More and more people are now cutting back on the time they spend in the office in favour of working from home. Whether this is an attempt to redress the work-life balance, or forms part of an environmental drive to cut back on carbon emissions, an increasing number of us are becoming more flexible in our working practices.
Whether you’re an occasional home worker, or it’s your permanent office, it’s vital that your working environment is productive, efficient and comfortable. Lexmark has put together a guide to help individuals set up …

So the shine has come off Supermum.
According to a Cambridge University report published this week, more people now think that a woman who works does so at the expense of her family: enthusiasm for equality in the workplace peaked in the 90s and is now waning.
Leaving aside the fact that all this is based on a six-year-old survey, and also that record numbers of women are now returning to work, who is or was Supermum anyway? I am a woman who works (as arts editor for the Guardian), and who …

You’ve given it the best years of your life, stripping and polishing its floorboards, repairing its sash windows and pumping a huge chunk of your salary into its mortgage. And how does your house repay you? By dropping hundreds or even thousands of pounds in value a month. These days, it could be losing as much as you are earning. But there are ways of making the ungrateful thing pay its way.
1 Rent out the dead space
Offspring finally flown the nest? Then renting out their room can be a …

Don’t be fooled by all the talk of shoe shopping or great nights out with the girls.
Women actually value hours spent with their husbands above everything else.
In a survey of 1,000 women, 40 per cent said this was the top priority in their spare time.
Read more.

Gentlemen are said to prefer them, and they are widely alleged to have more fun.
But blondes are less successful than brunettes both in work and in love, a survey suggests.
The study of 3,000 women found that, on average, brunettes earn £4,250 more a year than blondes.
Read more.

A decline in parenting skills has created a generation of children without moral boundaries, a teachers’ leader has said.
Philip Parkin warned that teachers are increasingly forced to discipline bad behaviour and take on the role of bringing up children because parents too often pander to their demands.
He blamed the increasing commercialisation of childhood, long working hours, the decline of traditional family structures and the ’shortening of the length of many relationships’.
Read more.

Drastic changes in diet boost a woman’s chances of giving birth into her 40s and 50s, it is claimed.
Alterations from cutting out alcohol and sugar to eating more organic foods allow women to hit the ’snooze button’ on their biological clocks, maximising their chances of having a baby, says a new book on fertility.
Sarah Dobbyn, a nutritionist and author of The Fertility Diet, said the influence of diet on fertility is often overlooked in an age in which IVF often seems the only answer …

Millions more parents will get the right to take time off work in family emergencies under a Government deal with the trade unions hammered out yesterday.
Unpaid leave will be extended to all those with families under 16 in case they need to look after a sick child or want to give them emotional support during exam times.
Unpaid leave is only available at the moment until the youngest child is six.
Read more.