Is there an actual magazine for real women?

20 years ago I used to regularly buy women's magazines.  Cosmopolitan, Red, Company, Elle.  I've bought all of these and more on many occasions.  But as I got older I become less and less enamoured by them.

None of them now talk to me.

On my latest summer holiday I thought I'd pick up a magazine to read on the plane.  A quick look through them in the shop told me they hadn't changed in 20 years.  Still as irrelevant to me - in fact more so!

And I wonder whether there's a huge gap in the market here? Are there loads of people like? Or am I just really weird?  You be the judge.  I'll tell you why I don't like them...

The New Hobby Dilemma

The New Hobby Dilemma: how many classes should you take before knowing it's not for you?

Children come with a host of undiscovered talents. We don't know what they will be good at. We don't now whether they will take to swimming like a duck to water, or if they will splash and cry and splash some more and scream the place down and try every trick in the book to convince us they don't need to learn to swim.

Whilst swimming is a non-negotiable for us (being a life saver it is compulsory attendance for our girls), other hobbies are all up for debate.

Ballet dancing, horse-riding, singing, piano-playing, rugby, karate, street dance, gymnastics, cheerleading....... They are some of the many childhood activities on offer for our children and our children may be brilliant at them.

They may also be rubbish.

So how many classes do you insist they go to before allowing them to say, "I don't want to do it anymore"? Should we insist they make the effort, as not everything will necessarily click straight away. Or do we assume that if it's their talent then they, and us, will magically know straight away?

Is there such a thing as "being a natural"?

And if they are brilliant at it, but hate it, what then?

What do you think?

 

You can also read the debate about the gender-specific nature of some childhood activities at "Why is it OK for little girls to love dinosaurs, but not OK for little boys to love Barbie?"