The love you have for that child and the love you receive in return, will change your heart, your mind, your soul and your priorities. It will change everything. And parents for a fact wouldn’t change that for the world.

After 25 years of marriage, a couple decides to get a divorce. From the outside looking in, things could not be any stranger. The pressures of establishing a career have subsided, the kids have grown-up (and hopefully moved out), and a desired lifestyle has been obtained. After all, surely this couple has been though just about everything and survived it. Or have they?

According to a new joint report issued last week by child psychologist Dr Sam Wass and Center Parcs, well-meaning parents are over-timetabling their children who “work” nine hours more than the adult average of 37 hours. The study says most children have an average of just one hour and 29 minutes free on a week day.

The author cannot help wondering how the post-millennial generation will incorporate social media into their parenting. Millennials are the most transparent, the most connected to social media, parenting in a world where not putting photographs of your children on Facebook, nor offering up a commentary on your broken nights and organic craft-filled days, seems downright antisocial.

The author has been inspired by research that suggests knowing the intimate facts of our family histories makes us more healthy emotionally. He is pleased his son knows his great-grandad was a miner, that his daughters know their great-great auntie was in service.

Fear is all around us these days. But while our current politics may have amped up this emotion, it’s one parents have long known well. It’s crucial, however, that parents learn to manage their own fears. And, more importantly, that we not transfer our fears to our child.