I’m the root of all evil – a working mother

Frankly, I wish these grumpy old men would find other people to lecture than those who are working hard to contribute to this country's increasingly laughable tax requirements and producing a future generation to pay the pensions of our booming elderly population. The environmental imprint of a family is not dictated by its size, nor is the likelihood of divorce or bad parenting the sole responsibility of working mothers, unless we are to decide that female financial independence is undesirable and therefore commit to bringing up a generation of daughters who must find a prince to support them, starve, or leech off the state.

I, like many working mothers, have adopted a far from casual attitude towards preparing my children for the future. I may have taken this to extremes: I anxiously babbled to my surprised-looking in-laws about my first child having to compete with the drive of China and India when she was still in her Moses basket. But children, surely, learn by example, and working mothers set an example to their children. Certainly, when my mother worked, or told me that my education was important (I still remember sitting an exam, aged five), I never felt this negatively impacted on my happiness. I felt that the world set no limits on the female existence, nor did it present that stark choice: career or children.

To set parameters on our daughters' ambitions and imply that educational success will turn them into unfit parents is a message that will not help anyone at all, particularly in the current climate. But then Williams once welcomed the introduction of sharia law in Britain, so perhaps we shouldn't listen to him when it comes to how women should lead their lives.

* Catherine Ostler is editor of ES Magazine.