Interesting Facts

According to research company Mintel, Britons spend around £ 510 million on Mother's Day gifts in 2015, but only £ 350 million on Father's Day gifts. (Poor dads!)

According to a study commissioned by Littlewoods.com, mothers are the most quizzed people in the UK. (Mothers are asked about 300 questions a day, in fact they are asked more questions per hour than a primary school teacher (19) even doctors and nurses only have to cope with 18 questions an hour. The study also discovered that girls around the age of 4 are the most curious, asking an incredible 390 questions a day; that's about one question every 2 minutes. From breakfast at 7.19am to tea time at 7.59pm, the average mum faces a testing 12.5 hour day of questioning - working out at one question every two minutes 36 seconds. The toughest questions asked are:- 1) Why is water wet? (35 per cent) 2) Where does the sky end? (34 per cent) 3) What are shadows made of? (33 per cent) 4) Why is the sky blue? (20 per cent) 5) How do fish breathe under water? (18 per cent) Maybe I'll ask these in the next LEN Quiz session on Kitely.)

Finland has been rated the best place in the world to be a mum in the annual Mothers' Index compiled by Save the Children. (Sweden and Norway, were also at the top, while Germany was 9th, Australia 10th, France 16th and Ireland 20th, Britain came 23rd, behind most of her European neighbours, and the United States was placed 30th in the ranking of 176 countries. Mums in the poorest countries are at most risk, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the world’s toughest place to be a mother.) Save the Children

In the 1970s 70% of mothers in the UK stayed at home full time. (In 2013 that figure is just 10%, but according to a survey by uSwitch, 75% of mums would like to be able to afford to stay at home and look after their children. Six out of ten mothers who return to work after having a baby do so only to pay the mortgage, or to ease financial pressures such as debt. Just one in seven said they wanted to develop their career.)

According to a study commissioned by home energy management service "AlertMe", the average Brit lies in a semi-detached home and wakes up at 6.57am. (Half of all the families who replied said their favourite form of entertainment is watching television - the typical British family has the goggle box switched on for nine hours each day and their favourite show is the TV show Doctor Who. The run-of-the-mill British family sits down for dinner at 5.54pm, but they only eat together three times a week and they argue around twice a week. The average weekly food shop came to £76.02 and a further £12 each week was spent on alcohol. Fathers were most concerned about keeping costs down, in more than a third of households he is the person who turns off lights and stand-by switches. Meanwhile, British mothers bear the brunt of chores, doing an average of four and a half hours of housework each week, including at least five loads of laundry!)

According to a survey by "workingmum.co.uk" 74% of mums feel guilty for leaving their children to go to work. (The trouble is many stay at home mums feel guilty because they are not going out to work. It's a lose lose situation.)

powered by ODEO According to social website alljoinon.com, if housewives got paid at the going rate for doing household chores, they would earn around £30,000 a year. (The average mum works around nine hours a day every day, and if she were paid for the amount of time she spends doing the chores it would look something like this:- For £8 an hour a nanny would earn £36.80 a day. Cleaning and tidying for £7.10 a day. Cooking £17.30 a day. Making the beds is worth about £1.29 for a chambermaid. Washing up for £2.57. Doing the family finances for 39 minutes, would cost £12.50 if an accountant did it. A taxi driver would earn £2.53 for the 23 minutes of ferrying children around. And a mystery shopper £2.10 for the 18 minutes a day of grocery shopping. Ah - but we all know that mums are priceless.)