Kelly’s got a point

I MUST confess, I have some sympathy with Kelly Brook when she says that working mums use their children as an excuse not to pull their weight.

Before I had my kids, I used to feel very resentful of colleagues who left the office early to do the school run or took days off when their child was sick. It was always left to those of us without children to pick up the slack, as though somehow our time mattered less because we weren’t parents.

now that I have children of my own, of course, I understand the pressures. nevertheless, there’s no harm in being reminded of the alternative view.

NO SURPRISE that lily allen spends five hours a day on Twitter, or that she tells her children it’s ‘work’. The truth is, faffing about online is work these days, as the rise of YouTube ‘stars’ such as Zoella proves.

Being a so-called online ‘influencer’ is now a legitimate career if you’re under 30. and, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t require an awful lot of talent, save a surfeit of vanity and a penchant for saying daft things. Happily for her, lily allen (pictured) is more than qualified in both respects.

AS LOUISE PALAI, the woman who disciplined her two rowdy daughters in the fruit and veg aisle of Tesco by making them sit on the ‘naughty step’, proves, good parenting isn’t fun. It’s boring and timeconsuming — which is why so many mums in her position would have simply bribed the kids with a treat or a phone to play with. Not Ms Palai. ‘I have a responsibility to make sure my children are respectful,’ she said. What a wonderfully novel concept.