UKfamily

As my three lovely children, relaxed husband and I carve a path with our machetes through Lala land, it's not hard to imagine why the lovely Rachael asked me to review UKFamily, a new parenting website, owned by Walt Disney. It's clearly a natural match.

Stop sniggering at the back.

Not only that, but Rachael is even offering a small payment - and asks for honesty.

Put that smile away now.

So here goes.

The one thing the UK isn't short of is websites for families. For anarchic humour, there's the Bad Mother's Club. For the reassurance that whatever experience you've had, somebody else has had it worse (or better, or in a funnier way) there's Mumsnet.

So UKfamily.co.uk is going to have to work hard, especially for a battle-scarred old witch like me.

I could have done with a user-friendly version of a mission statement. What was I supposed to get out of this? A bit of a laugh, advice, reduced entrance tickets to Euro Disney? All three?

In fairness, this site, as you'd expect, seems aimed at parents with younger children than mine whose cynicism is still at a larveal stage in their brains.

You can tell, because everyone is smiling. You can choose to click on a smiley couple, smiley baby, child or 'tween'.

Everyone is clean and lovely. I amused myself for a few minutes moving the mouse so the baby assumed giant proportions, looming over the mother - a much more accurate reflection of what it feels like, in my mind - and then realised that this was silly and immature and moved onto the advice sections.

The emphasis is on bite-sized, quick to read advice and then readers' feedback. It's good as an introduction, perhaps a little perfunctory. There are pieces from people like Linda Blair - a well regarded expert in the field.

Some of it feels a little glib. One expert believes passionately that 'relaxed, well informed parents produce happy, carefree kids.' Well, who'd a thunk it? And what happens to the unrelaxed ones, like me? Perhaps we're all doomed. Still, it's nothing a few rousing choruses of 'It's a small world after all,' won't sort out.

But it does attempt to cover the darker issues, too. Depression, tantrums. I'm heartened to read in one piece about tweens about 'the enormous physical and neuro-chemical (brain) changes that ... put your tweens under considerable stress...' until I realise that it's tween hormones under discussion, not mine.

Oh, try for yourselves. Just don't say I sent you. I've got my reputation to consider.

Can I have my money now, Rachael?