BBC Wales announces Real Families season

Despite the worries expressed by some that changes over the last decades - like an increase in divorce and a rise in childbirth outside marriage - have led to a decline in the quality of family life, the poll shows that 79% of people are very happy with family life. The results do show some differences across Wales, with 84% of people in north Wales being happier than their counterparts in mid-west Wales (82%), south-east Wales (78%) and south-west Wales (73%).

The poll also highlights concerns among some, about young people brought up in single parent families. It found that over a quarter (28%) felt that children raised by single parents did worse in school, and displayed more anti-social behaviours than those from two parent households. This figure went up to 39% amongst male participants, but fell to 19% amongst females.

Dr Rachel Hurdley from Cardiff University challenges this view and says: “That idea of family being fractured and falling apart is a particular point of view, that once there was something solid that is now being destroyed through rising divorce rates, women going to work, single families, and children in families on welfare third generation. The problem is that if that point of view persists, all those different new kinds of families still have that shame and stigma attached to them, which really they shouldn’t have.”

Nicola Jones, a single parent from Swansea, says: “When people think of single mothers I think they think of people on benefits… having money from the state… I’ve never done that… I’ve worked all the way through from when I had Matthew... It’s difficult… there’s a lot of pressure, there’s peer pressure on the children today to have things and we can’t always deliver the goods.”

Over the next few weeks BBC Cymru Wales will be exploring the many aspects of family life in modern Wales – and how they’ve changed, starting tonight (Monday 29 September) with Real Families with Steve Evans, on BBC One Wales at 10.35pm.

TV Programmes

Real Families with Steve Evans

In just two generations, family life in Wales has changed dramatically. More children are now born to unmarried parents than to couples who are married. There are more single parents, more families with step brothers and sisters and gay couples bringing up their own children. There are also more working mothers. In this programme, Steve Evans talks to families who live in very different circumstances, to find out what's changed in the family in 21st century Wales. Among those he meets are a Cardiff family whose job is to portray the model family in adverts, a single mum and her son, a typical Welsh farming family and a gay couple who've adopted their own child.

September 29, BBC One Wales, 10.35pm

Family Life Swap

Take two Welsh families with very different backgrounds and lifestyles, and get their teenage children to swap lives. The aim is to get a fresh and honest insight into what Welsh teenagers really think and feel, and at the same time look at the challenges of raising and parenting teenagers.

The result is a revealing, humorous, thought-provoking and moving snap shot of the pleasures and pressures of family life in 21st century Wales. When the Beynon kids of Abertillery – Amy (19), Connor (18) and Rhys (15) – agreed to swap lives with Megan (17) and Bronwyn Crabtree (15) of Llanvetherine near Abergavenny, the surface differences in their lives were very stark. The Beynons have been brought up in a Valleys terrace, under very strict parenting - no hanging out on the streets, church on Sunday, and a mouth full of soap if you dare to swear. The Crabtree girls, on the other hand, have free reign at their rural smallholding to come and go as they please to a busy round of hunt balls, barn dances and Young Farmers’ socials.

Amid a whirlwind of laughter, tears, new experiences and new friends The Big Welsh Family Life Swap reveals that there are universal issues, hopes and fears that every Welsh teenager and every Welsh parent share.

October 3, BBC One Wales, 7.30pm

Real Families: A Child’s View

What has happened to childhood in Wales? Do children still run free by streams, making dens and climbing trees or is it all computers and TV screens these days? This summer, children from across Wales were given cameras to document their experiences. They are all different, only sharing the fact that all of the children are moving from their childhood primary schools to their secondary schools. It is a time of challenge and transition. Eight children reveal their hopes and fears, their adventures and their passions in this revealing and sometimes surprising look through children’s eyes.

October 6, BBC One Wales, 10.35pm

Real Families: Born Small

The apple never falls far from the tree, or so the saying goes. But what happens when your child is born with a difference? It is human nature to look for the similarities between ourselves and our offspring, but many families have to learn to understand and embrace what may seem like major differences between themselves and their children.

Dawn and Dave Lusted from Rhos-on-Sea, have two sons who were born with Diastrophic Dysplasia, a rare form of dwarfism. Dawn and Dave are both of average height, but were unwittingly carrying the dwarfism gene. This programme gives a unique insight into the Lusted’s family life, and what it is to live with disability in the family. James and Phil have gained great support from the dwarfism community, and now that James is dating Chloe, who is of average height, he is keen to introduce her to his friends who also have the condition. We follow James and Chloe to the Little People UK convention, where families gather every year to socialise and support each other.

October 7, BBC One Wales, 10.35pm

Jamie Baulch: Looking For My Birth Mum

Welsh Olympic silver medallist and world champion athlete Jamie Baulch goes in search of his birth mother and asks why he was given up for adoption. Jamie was brought to Wales as a six-month-old, mixed race ‘difficult to place’ baby, by Alan and Marilyn Baulch in 1973. He says his upbringing couldn’t have been happier and he was raised as one of four children in a close, loving and supportive family near Risca. He had never felt the need to trace his origins. But as a father of two boys and a patron of Adopt Wales, Jamie feels the time is now right to find out who he is. As Jamie goes through the official process of trying to trace birth parents and his adoption circumstances with the help of a social worker, he is shocked by the emotional impact it has on him and what he finds.

October 9, BBC One Wales, 8pm

Gareth Thomas: Game Changer

On the field, the man they called ‘Alfie’ was a true warrior - no battle too hard, no opponent too tough. In his career he achieved 100 caps, and was captain of both Wales and the British and Irish Lions. Everyone knows that was only half of the story and coming out as the world's only openly gay rugby player, changed how sexuality was represented in sport.

In this intimate portrait of Gareth and his family, he opens up about his struggle with hiding his sexuality and how he learned to finally tell the truth about himself, to his loved ones and the world. This is the story of the rise of a skinny working-class postman from Bridgend, who became a hero to countless people around the world for his actions – on and off the pitch.

October, BBC One Wales. Date to be confirmed

Lucy Owen: Working Mum

Lucy Owen is best known as the face of BBC Wales Today and X-Ray, but she is also a mum. Like hundreds of thousands of women across Wales, she balances the demands of work and parenthood – and sometimes feels like she is falling short at both.

In this moving, and sometimes inspiring film, Lucy sets out across Wales to meet mothers, children and experts to find out how people cope, and ultimately whether the need to work actually damages children in the long run. Lucy talks to single mum Bethan Lewis from Glyncorrwg who is not only bringing up three children but is also juggling three different jobs. She talks to Uzo Iwobi from Swansea, whose children are at university, and asks whether she has any regrets about the work decisions she made while her children were growing up. And how did ‘Mum of The Year’ Sam Weaver from Llysfaen attain her prestigious title?

At the end of her journey Lucy meets with Dr Justine Howard from Swansea University to find out if being at work is really harming her son’s development.

October 13, BBC One Wales, 8.30pm

Sex, Love and Cwtches

Sex, it seems, sells. Billboards, books, TV, films and the internet are full of it – we’ve never lived in more sexualised times. And yet, according to the most comprehensive survey of British sex lives, we’re having less sex now than we did 25 years ago. The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL) – which has spoken to nearly 50,000 people across three surveys in 1990, 2000 and 2010 – has found that although we may be younger having sex for the first time, people are having more sexual partners and enjoying a real smorgasbord of sexual experiences, we’re also having less sex. The programme looks back over the last five decades to see what has shaped and defined our attitudes to sex and our sex lives to understand why it’s now losing its appeal and slipping down our priorities.

October 14, BBC One Wales, 10.35pm

Week In Week Out – Who Will Look After Mum And Dad?

“I just want to tell my family ‘I love you all’ - while I am still able to do it”. Chris Roberts of Rhuddlan is 53 years old and has dementia. “When you get a diagnosis of dementia, your whole family gets a diagnosis”, he says. Chris has chosen the care home he will live in when his wife and children can no longer cope. His wife, Jayne, also looks after her mother, Monica, who has dementia too. The number of people living with the condition will triple by 2050. Older people’s charities describe it as “a time-bomb waiting to go off.”

The Alzheimer’s Society says tens of thousands are living without any support in Wales and the diagnosis rate here is lower than anywhere else in the UK. Even when they are diagnosed, the Welsh NHS spends half as much for every new patient as they do in England. BBC Week in Week Out follows the dementia story from early stages to the care home and asks “who will look after Mum and Dad?”

October 21, BBC One Wales, 10.35pm

Radio programmes

Straeon Bob Lliw – Tewach na Dŵr, September 29, BBC Radio Cymru, 12.30pm

A programme about four sets of twins.

Incredible Years, October 12, BBC Radio Wales, 12.30pm

In a new two-part series, Radio Wales follows a newly enrolled class of parents who are at their wits end. Incredible Years offers a personal insight into the world of parenting programmes. Journalist Sioned Morys explores her experience of dealing with her seven-year-old son’s tantrums. She meets other mothers struggling with their own offspring. The series offers a unique insight into the help available to parents.

Bore Cothi, October 13-17, BBC Radio Cymru, 10.45am

A series of five original monologues, Coeden Deulu, about the concept of family. Written by five different authors – Ceri Elen, Alun Saunders, Paul Barrett, Emlyn Gomer and the 2014 winner of the National Eisteddfod of Wales’ Drama Medal, Dewi Wyn Williams.

SM2

Related BBC Links

• BBC Wales