Just in from Bizarro World: parents who don't work full-time are disadvantaging their children

Because we are now beholden to not only the holy God of Work but also the feminist movement. A woman who does not aspire to full-time work is now ridiculed in feminist circles. Hannah Rosin, author of 'The End of Men and the Rise of Women,' says that she would never not work, 'because that decision is loaded with feminist betrayal.'

A woman, it seems, is no longer allowed to choose to be a housewife, without attracting the ire of the entire sisterhood. So regardless of the consequences for family, for children, a feminist must commit to her career, in the same way as a man.

With this attitude firmly entrenched in the national mindset, though, does this leave a void of caring in the family unit? Certainly it should not be solely a woman's responsibility to shoulder this burden, but surely one parent has to concede a little or the family comes a poor second to work? But, alas, work has now become the greatest defining feature of an individual's worth and children must jolly well fit in.

Just this week, popular commentator and editor of women's website 'Mamamia,' Mia Freeman, opined on Facebook that 'there is something fundamentally flawed about a system that gives parents 4 weeks annual leave and children 12 weeks+ of school holidays' and asks her readers how they are coping. Most reply that they have put their children into vacation care with a heavy and guilty heart. But what would they prefer? That the school year be extended to give children only four weeks' annual leave? Surely children need more time than that to, well, be children. But that doesn't fit in with the working adult's life. Instead, children must become slaves to our hectic timetables, all year long.

At the end of the day, parents must decide whether to alter their own schedules to fit their children's requirements or alter their children's schedule to fit their own. If they choose the latter, they will naturally find that they are unable to assuage their guilt because they know in their hearts that, to a not-insignificant degree, they are robbing their children of a relaxed and slow paced childhood.