Shelley is about to admit to one of the great taboos of motherhood. No matter how hard she has tried, she says she can’t bring herself to love her elder daughter, Catherine. ‘I know what people will think. Everyone will hate me. I’m the woman who doesn’t like her own child. But I’m speaking out because I’m convinced I’m not alone,’ says the 33-year-old.

This experience of Shelley’s (or try here or here if the article is down) is worthy of discussion and I’m sure she’s right and other mothers feel this way too, and I could say a lot about fathers who don’t seem to have any particular attachment to their children (ie. the whole ‘deadbeat dad’ phenomenon) but who don’t seem to trigger nearly the outrage.. but instead what I will say is fu-uck, how masochistic do you have to be to tell a story like this to…