London - A survey recently revealed that the majority of parents say their children are most lovable at the age of five.
Here, leading writers nominate the age at which their children captured their hearts...
NEWBORN
LORRAINE CANDY, 47, editor of Elle magazine and mother of four.
Sometimes, when home life with four rowdy children gets too stressful, I retire to my favourite step at the top of the stairs and look at the framed pictures of Baby Mabel on the wall.
I close my eyes and try to conjure up the smell of her soft newborn skin. I remember her delicate, wispy infant curls and the feel of her velvety warm breath against my cheek. I recall how we used to lie quietly together on the sofa in the silence of the day, her heart beating alongside mine as she slept, the soft weight of her tiny body as I held her close.
Her long eyelashes, her miniature toes, the plump folds of kissable skin around her knees. Every day felt like Christmas.
Yes, I am addicted to newborns; it is the age when I am at my happiest as a mom.
This week ‘Baby Mabel’, now four, started school. The quiet grief of knowing there will be no more babies marks these September days with a melancholy sadness.
Mabel was the perfect baby. She slept, fed with ease, gurgled and giggled at everything. She took just two days to potty train and she even self-weaned.
She was so adorable we wondered if perhaps she’d been sent to observe us by an alien race.
“The mothership may come back for her soon,” I used to whisper to my husband, as visitors passed her around, ooohing and ahhhing at her loveliness.
I cried my eyes out when I dropped her off outside her new classroom this week. And I cried some more when I picked her up.
Then we did what she always wants to do when I get sad about her growing up. We went home to watch the Pampers advert, which features a variety of newborns sleeping soundly.
“Look, mommy,” she said. “Babies! Aren’t they perfect.”
AGE 18
QUENTIN LETTS, 52, Daily Mail sketch writer, theatre critic and father of three.
My son Claud turned 18 this summer and, like 1997 vintage port, is maturing handsomely.
He is officially a man, even though my wife Lois and I still think of him as our boy to be fussed over. He hates that.
We have not loved him more or less at any particular age. To us he has just been dear, old Claud: a baby initially serene, later fretful; a child who barely talked until he was five; gawky in his early teens, but never less than decent, fair and lovable.
Now I can go to the pub with him. He is good company, droll, modest, calm. I relish every moment.
Claud had a few problems in his early years, but the moment I knew he was going to be okay was when he was seven and my parents celebrated their golden wedding.
My late father, an English gent of rare emotional reserve, was so overcome at that happy party that he started to weep discreetly.
The rest of us looked at our shoes. Not Claud. Even though he was the one supposedly on the autistic spectrum with communication problems, he slipped off his seat, sidled over to “Papa” and put his arms around my father’s neck, hugging him with defiance.
The memory brings tears to my eyes even as I write this.
Every year he gives us more. How lucky we are. That is why I say that 18 is the best age - despite the driving lessons I give him, which are terrifying.
Like the fabled duckling, our lad has become a swan, full of hope about going to university (Liverpool, perhaps) to read classics. Last month, he left for four months to work at a school in China. Saying goodbye to him, I felt such emotion it was as though I had been stabbed.
AGE SIX
IMOGEN EDWARDS-JONES, 46, author and mother of two.
Six is a magical time. The nappies and pureeing are over. Children can hold a fork and go to the loo on their own.
They can even remember their own address should they get lost in the cereal section of the supermarket.
The worry that the spots/cough/cut/tumble down the stairs is going to kill them has subsided, and they no longer need a wretched snack if they are more than 400m from the house.
They have been to school for a year, so, blessedly, they have learned to sit down for more than ten minutes. They have come to understand that “sharing” may not be “caring”, but it is still something you just have to do.
They can count to 100 and sign a birthday card. They have had a bit of education, and yet all the joy and the imagination are still there.
They still believe in Father Christmas and the tooth fairy. And they can spend hours playing alone with just a piece of wood.
But, in my daughter Allegra’s case, it was the questions I found most entertaining. It was not so much the obvious, “Why is the sky blue?”, but the more obscure, “What is beyond space?” and the very well judged: “Why is that pretty girl married to that fat, old man?”
AGE NINE
RACHEL HALLIWELL, 46, writer and mother of three.
Last Saturday, as I sat across a restaurant table from my nine-year-old daughter, I was struck by how grown-up she looked.
Of course, it may have had something to do with the determined way she was holding her own in our “discussion”.
“I can’t let you give up piano, Bridie,” I’d just told her. “You’re too good at it.”
To which she demanded to know why, if I was going to spend half my life telling her that happiness is what truly matters, I was determined she waste so many miserable hours practising each week.
Five minutes ago, it seemed this child adored me unquestioningly. Now here she was skillfully using my own words against me - and coming out on top. And I felt so proud of her for it.
Something wonderful happens to a child at nine: they suddenly seem to fit perfectly into their bodies (before becoming spotty and gangly when they hit puberty) and you start to see glimpses of the young adult they will become in their changing facial features.
Bridie also knows her own mind, whether that’s what to wear or pick off the menu.
Thankfully, she’s still young enough to cuddle up to me on the sofa and hold my hand in public.
And she still believes I know more than she does. Give it a couple of years and she’ll be convinced I’m a nitwit whenever I open my mouth.
AGE THREE
SANDRA HOWARD, 75, author and mother of three.
I go gloopy remembering how adorable my children were at the age of three. No more nappies, the vocabulary blossoming quaintly.
Nick wasn’t great at words starting with “sn”, so he’d look out of the window at falling snowflakes and exclaim: “Noow, noow!”
And Larissa, the younger by just 14 months and always desperate not to be left out, would cry: “An me! An me!”
What I loved most of all was the worshipping puppy love she had for her brother.
When she was three - and he, at four, seemed so grown up - she would do anything for him. If he’d left something upstairs, she would race off for it before he’d raised himself an inch off the floor.
Then she’d beam with delight while handing it over, however much he took her kindnesses as a matter of course.
It was in the park that Larissa excelled herself. Having wheeled the children there in a double buggy, I’d let them loose, expecting them to go off and make friends.
While Nick would settle himself on a grassy bank and watch the world go by, his sister would trot off to make friends for him.
He was like a little Buddha, solemnly receiving potential playmates, but never going off in search of any friends himself.
The saying goes: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” But I wonder, do their true selves form even earlier than that?
AGE 18 MONTHS
VIRGINIA IRONSIDE, 71, author, agony aunt and mother of one.
I particularly enjoyed my son, Will, when he was 18 months old. He was staggering around and saying his first words, but what I loved was how, every day, he learned something new.
One week he discovered how to put a blanket over his head and then remove it, to gales of laughter. We did this endlessly.
A week later he caught on to building towers of bricks and knocking them down.
It’s a non-verbal age, a time when you can play with your children spontaneously without any fear that what you say might be wrong.
It’s worlds away from the troubled teenage years, when even the phrase “You’re looking very nice!” can trigger an explosion.
At the end of the day, there was nothing more satisfying than rocking him to sleep.
His eyes would close, then open, then close, pulled back by tiredness. In a last desperate attempt to stay conscious, they would open once more before he would be overcome by tiredness, his body going limp in my arms.
Then, he’d be out like a light, not yet old enough to yell for a glass of water or scream as he woke from a heartbreaking nightmare.
Then I would tuck him up in bed, a little nut of warm sweetness, his tiny fingers clutching his favourite stuffed frog.
AGE 11
URSULA HIRSCHKORN, 43, writer and mother of four.
Last week I watched my 11-year-old son Jacob walk down the road to catch the bus to his secondary school for the first time.
As I noticed his shoulders squared in his too-big blazer, his book bag casually slung from his shoulder, I felt my heart contract.
It wasn’t just that my little boy was growing up; it was that I was going to see less of my best friend.
He might be on the cusp of the teenage years - and I grant that this means he is no longer cute and sweet - but he is so very handsome instead.
He’s almost as tall as me, strong enough to help me carry the shopping and thoughtful enough to offer to.
He can make me dissolve into giggles with one of his disdainful glances. These are reserved for embarrassing mother moments, when I attempt to do things at which I am woefully inept. He will say: “Mom, please stop trying to help me do my maths, you know you will only get it wrong.”
But while he may have a brain like a computer, that doesn’t mean he can remember anything useful, such as his wallet, keys or mobile phone.
Every day I run him through a checklist of what he needs and almost always there is a gasp and a swift trip upstairs to collect some vital item.
Once I was on the phone to the bank to cancel his “lost” debit card when he sheepishly came up and told me that, despite having “looked everywhere”, it had been hiding under his toy meerkat all along.
He’s my fascinating, hilarious and loving boy and, for now, he’s still young enough not to have grown out of his ancient, 43-year-old mom.
AGE 22
JENNI MURRAY, 65, is presenter of Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and mother of two.
I have, of course, adored my boys from the moment I locked eyes with them as I held them in my arms for the first time.
But raising children is never an easy job and parental adoration can wax and wane.
And then, suddenly, you’re the mother of two, tall, dark and handsome men and you’re completely free to love them to bits without any of the pressure of discipline or worrying about exam results.
By 22, they were qualified, workers, independent and, moreover, far better cooks than their parents.
Most importantly they were willing and able: “Can’t you reach that lightbulb, Mom? Don’t worry, I’ll do it.”
If I was short of a companion for the theatre or cinema, I had - and still have - someone to call.
Dinner in a restaurant came with engaging, lively conversation and, if only my sons didn’t look so much like me, people might think I’d pulled a toy boy!
They are, quite simply, my most proud success story.
During my breast cancer treatment, Ed was calm and pragmatic while Charlie accompanied me to hospital visits to better understand the situation.
Both became my rock and they have stayed steady in this role.
Since they turned 22, our relationship is uncomplicated and full of mutual love, affection and admiration. It’s worth waiting for.
AGE 13
PHIL ROBINSON, 42, is a writer and father of three.
I shook my head when I read the results of the survey that stated that children are best at five and worst at 12.
As a father of three boys, aged eight, ten and 13, I found five-year olds superficially cute, but became bored reading the same bedtime stories over and over again.
To me, the age of 13 seems like another world, when the adult personality of your child becomes truly apparent.
The last couple of years with my oldest son, Oscar, have been a constant surprise. I feel as if I’ve finally got to meet the guy I’ve been raising, and it turns out he’s great.
The mix of adult and child is hugely endearing. He’s a tough old lump who plays prop for his school rugby team, but he’ll still talk to the cat in a baby voice.
Because of his age, his mood varies with the weather. He can be truculent yet he’ll also ask me a hundred exhausting yet perceptive questions about the financial crisis when I am driving him to school.
His questions force me to think about the example I am setting. He makes me raise my game.
He is also great company - I finally have someone I can go and eat kebabs with, and he is already a fine proponent of the English art of banter.
This is exactly how I hoped being a father would be.
Daily Mail