Two York friends are sharing their parenting secrets with the nation in a new TV show. Maxine Gordon reports

TUNE in to BBC2 at 8.30pm tonight and there may be a face you recognise.

Jo Haywood, Press columnist and York journalist, is one of the talking heads on The Madness Of Modern Families, where mums and dads across the land shamelessly admit to the kooky stunts they have pulled for their kids.

From faking an address in order to get junior into a good school to rummaging through his mate's bag to see how they were faring in class, there appears to have been a lot of bad behaviour going on from grown-ups.

When the producers asked Jo, a mum of two, to take part she agreed and recommended a friend, Kildip James, of Clifton, York.

Kildip, 38, who is married with two children and works for Ardent Financial Services in Stillington, admits the prospect of going on television was daunting.

"I was worried about how I'd come across and whether I'd have enough to say," said Kildip. "They told me they wanted me to talk about getting kids into a decent school, birthday parties, what we put in the packed-lunch box and things like that."

In the first episode, aired last week, Kildip confessed to the nation how she was guilty of present recycling'.

"I admitted to recycling presents," she said. "Alex had two copies of The Gruffalo book, so I wrapped one up as a present for one of his friends. Unfortunately, this little boy opened his present at the start of the party and Alex thought it was his book and got really upset, shouting Mummy, that's mine'. I was saying: No, no, yours is at home,' but I felt all the mums were looking at me thinking: You cheapskate'."

Jo suspects her children have been the victim of such a practice, because some books they have received for birthday gifts have been well thumbed.

While the cringing confessions of parents may make us laugh, Jo and Kildip believe there is a serious point to the programme.

Kildip said: "As parents, I think we have gone a bit mad. When I do a children's party I spend days making my own pastry and tarts, provide lovely jugs of Pimms - all for the parents, when they'd probably be just as happy with a sausage roll!"

Jo recalls going to a kids' party where the parents were so busy catering for the adults, the children went hungry.

First-time mums, believes Kildip, are especially competitive. She said: "When your first child is born you can't help but compare it to friends' babies: is it crawling first; sleeping though the night; off the bottle?"

She thinks much of the problem stems, ironically, from us being too focused on trying to be good parents.

She said: "I think there is too much information out there for parents, and you worry about doing the wrong thing. At the end of the day, we just want what is best for our children."

Jo says the show exposes the "middle class nuttiness" of modern parents. She thinks the programme makers were keen to include her in the show because her views were a bit more balanced than some of the participants.

She said: "Some of the stories are completely crackers they have some very nice but nutty parents in the show, and I think they wanted me to teeter on the edge of bonkers but pull back and see the nuttiness.

"There were some parents who spent thousands on a birthday party for their kids, or hired Brighton pier."

From watching the show, Jo realised she was the sole voice from the North (Kildip is originally from Leicester).

She said: "When you watch it, you realise it is really London-centred and not that relevant here. All that keeping up with the Joneses is just not that bad in York."

However, Jo agrees with Kildip that modern parents are a lot madder than the generation before.

She said: "We are a lot nuttier than our parents were. We're too child-centred, getting them whatever the hell they want. I don't remember it being like that when I was a kid; I had to fit in with my parents.

"You've got to take kids into consideration, but it should be about being a family instead of we can't go here because the children won't like it or will misbehave'.

"Basically, people give their kids everything and I'm not sure the kids are entirely grateful.

"I can't see the material thing ending. We're not going to go back to puritanical times when children should be seen and not heard, but there has got to be some tipping point. What that is or when it might be, I don't know."


The Madness Of Modern Families, Tuesdays, BBC2, 8.30pm.