You might like to think you're *adopts Mean Girls voice* "Not like a regular mum, I'm a cool mum", but – spoiler alert – even that's a type. They're called The In-Denial-About-Being-A-Parent Parent, and these days there are plenty more tribes emerging among your traditional Tiger Mums and Helicopter Parents…
The Duck Parents
“Oh, he’s barely touched a ball before in his life,” the Duck Parent says with a smile, as their child executes a Ronaldo-style flip past four players to score a goal that would leave Messi in the dust.
“Spelling practice words? My daughter never looks at them. I usually just put them through a shredder and use the scraps to line the hamster cage,” the Duck Parent shrugs as their child gets accepted to read English at Oxford University aged 10 (you get the idea).
Once recognisable as the Tiger Mum, when it became uncool to publicly put so much effort into your child the tribe evolved into Duck Parents, named after their duck-like quality of projecting serenity on the surface while paddling furiously beneath the water to make everything look effortless.
There's one rule when dealing with the Duck Parent: do not believe a word that comes out of their mouths when it comes to their kids. None of this happened effortlessly. You can guarantee their little one is practising for 10 hours a day (12 on a Saturday) just so Duck Parent can say: "We just stuck the piano in the corner of the living room and the next thing you know she'd written a concerto in D Minor."
The Rules Do Not Apply Parents
The Rules Do Not Apply Parents are easily identifiable by the contents of their child’s lunch box, which will contain one or all of the following: a packet of Oreos, a Big Mac left over from dinner the night before, a can of Monster Energy, a Chupa Chup lollipop and cake (any variety).
Interestingly, The Rules Do Not Apply Parents can be difficult to spot as they tend to drop their kids off at the school gates around 10.30am and collect them at 8pm, so you’ll likely only bump into them if you’ve slotted in a morning dentist appointment for your child and are bringing them in late yourself.
The Rules Do Not Apply Parents will permanently act as if their little one was randomly left on their doorstep at 10pm last night and they learnt everything about child-rearing by pulling an all-nighter of back-to-back Logan Paul videos on YouTube.
The Jellyfish Parents
A close relation to the humblebragger, Jellyfish Parents are adept at the art of throwing stinging shade so subtle you won’t know you’ve been struck until you climb into bed later that night.
"Indira had a lovely time with us today," they say when you pick your child up from the play date. Awww, that's nice, you'll think, demonstrating the same lack of guile a lamb might show to a wolf asking them to dinner. "Actually, I tell a lie, there was one little argument," the Jellyfish Parent mentions casually, as if the thought had only just occurred to them and they hadn't been sitting by the door for the past two hours waiting for you to arrive.
“It was when they were playing chess, because Olivia knows the rules and Indira doesn’t.” Cue: Chrissy Teigen at the 72nd Golden Globes meme face and a niggling feeling that you’re failing as a parent because your child hasn’t yet mastered the Budapest Gambit.
The Parents of a Genius
You can identify The Parents of a Genius by their liberal use of the word "advanced", which will pepper any conversation about their child. Sorry, did I say "conversation"? I meant monologue.
Their child begins by being "advanced" at potty training and crayon holding. By the end of nursery, The Parents of a Genius will let you know their child can discuss the merits of symbolism and societal values in Julia Donaldson's What the Ladybird Heard. At school, they become "advanced" at reading, maths and quantum physics.
If the head teacher is off sick, The Parents of a Genius might suggest their offspring step in and polish off that report for the education board before re-evaluating the coursework for years one through nine.
Find The Parents of a Genius in their favoured natural habitat: blocking the classroom door and monopolising the teacher's time at drop-off and pick-up, asking loudly why their child has been given a copy of Spot Goes to the Beach to read as opposed to Kafka's The Trial.
The Bake Sale Parents
“Children are invited to make cakes at home and bring them in for the bake sale to earn house points for their efforts,” reads the school email.
A quick run of that email through the Bake Sale Parents' I-Parent-So-Hard Translator™, and it now reads: "Parents are invited to participate aggressively in The Great UAE Bake Off, demonstrating Michelin levels of expertise while still having the audacity to pass the work off as their child's."
When the heart-thudding, pulse-skittering lure of extra house points is on offer, no assignment is too small for The Bake Sale Parents to turn into a Burj Khalifa-sized engineering project, complete with blueprints, recruitment of external experts, attempted bribery of teaching assistants and, if all else fails, a Watergate-style break-in to the school filing system to ascertain if their five-tiered, royal iced, chocolate ganache and gold leaf-filled replica of the school sports hall is better than the cake that won the most house points last year.
'The worst thing you can eat'
Trans fat is typically found in fried and baked goods, but you may be consuming more than you think.
Powdered coffee creamer, microwave popcorn and virtually anything processed with a crust is likely to contain it, as this guide from Mayo Clinic outlines:
Baked goods - Most cakes, cookies, pie crusts and crackers contain shortening, which is usually made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Ready-made frosting is another source of trans fat.
Snacks - Potato, corn and tortilla chips often contain trans fat. And while popcorn can be a healthy snack, many types of packaged or microwave popcorn use trans fat to help cook or flavour the popcorn.
Fried food - Foods that require deep frying — french fries, doughnuts and fried chicken — can contain trans fat from the oil used in the cooking process.
Refrigerator dough - Products such as canned biscuits and cinnamon rolls often contain trans fat, as do frozen pizza crusts.
Creamer and margarine - Nondairy coffee creamer and stick margarines also may contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
Company%20profile
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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg
Rating: 4/5
The biog
Title: General Practitioner with a speciality in cardiology
Previous jobs: Worked in well-known hospitals Jaslok and Breach Candy in Mumbai, India
Education: Medical degree from the Government Medical College in Nagpur
How it all began: opened his first clinic in Ajman in 1993
Family: a 90-year-old mother, wife and two daughters
Remembers a time when medicines from India were purchased per kilo
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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RESULTS
ATP China Open
G Dimitrov (BUL x3) bt R Bautista Agut (ESP x5)
7-6, 4-6, 6-2
R Nadal (ESP x1) bt J Isner (USA x6)
6-4, 7-6
WTA China Open
S Halep (ROU x2) bt D Kasatkina (RUS)
6-2, 6-1
J Ostapenko (LAT x9) bt S Cirstea (ROU)
6-4, 6-4
ATP Japan Open
D Schwartzman (ARG x8) bt S Johnson (USA)
6-0, 7-5
D Goffin (BEL x4) bt R Gasquet (FRA)
7-5, 6-2
M Cilic (CRO x1) bt R Harrison (USA)
6-2, 6-0
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Champions League Last 16
Red Bull Salzburg (AUT) v Bayern Munich (GER)
Sporting Lisbon (POR) v Manchester City (ENG)
Benfica (POR) v Ajax (NED)
Chelsea (ENG) v Lille (FRA)
Atletico Madrid (ESP) v Manchester United (ENG)
Villarreal (ESP) v Juventus (ITA)
Inter Milan (ITA) v Liverpool (ENG)
Paris Saint-Germain v Real Madrid (ESP)
Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others
Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”
Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.
Voy!%20Voy!%20Voy!
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Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
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The Baghdad Clock
Shahad Al Rawi, Oneworld
Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
How to help
Call the hotline on 0502955999 or send "thenational" to the following numbers:
2289 - Dh10
2252 - Dh50
6025 - Dh20
6027 - Dh100
6026 - Dh200
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2.0
Director: S Shankar
Producer: Lyca Productions; presented by Dharma Films
Cast: Rajnikanth, Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
The specs
Engine: 8.0-litre, quad-turbo 16-cylinder
Transmission: 7-speed auto
0-100kmh 2.3 seconds
0-200kmh 5.5 seconds
0-300kmh 11.6 seconds
Power: 1500hp
Torque: 1600Nm
Price: Dh13,400,000
On sale: now
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company%C2%A0profile
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
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