Almost all of us drive or use public transport, instead of walking to our destination. A large number of us use processed or semi processed food for our meals. We all know that walking and using fresh ingredients for our meals are good for our physical well being but we strike a balance by creating more time to do more things. That is what most of us want. Similarly, all mothers know it is better to stay at home but due to financial and other pressures they go out to work. This is again striking a balance. It is not all negative. A child does enjoy the benefits of his mother going out to work in the guise of extra money. We should stop making mothers feel guilty.
Vinay Mehra, Pulley, SurreyIt seems to me highly likely that there is a direct correlation between the decline in general standards of behaviour and the increase in the number of working mothers. Although blaming working mothers for this is perhaps unfair as for most work is a fait accompli. Unfortunately, the restructuring of the labour market over the past fifty years, coupled with the ridiculous monetary value that Britons now place on their humble abodes, has led to a situation where two incomes are required per household to make ends meet. Hence, many are forced to compromise with the welfare of their children. However, this situation cannot and should not be allowed to continue. We need to take the welfare and upbringing of our children more seriously and not abdicate responsibility. If we do not, things will only get worse and we will certainly end up ‘going to hell in a handcart’ – if we’re not already. Paul Pickering, Camberley
It is interesting (but, perhaps, not surprising) that, while this study compares stay-at-home mothers to "nurseries, nannies, child minders or relatives", no direct referral to stay-at-home fathers is made. Of course a parent's love will benefit a child, but this is not exclusive to mothers. And love is not fostered through severe inequality or being forced to stay at home through backward government policies or men’s driven ideas of success for themselves. Truly happy children of the present and future can only be the offspring of equal partners. It continues to amaze me that a "mother's guilt" is always referred to - what about the father's guilt? However all of this is somewhat hypothetical while living in a country where archaic government policies cannot even make paternity leave equal to maternity, or for leave to be shared between partners at their own discretion. Claire, Oxford
Studies should perhaps focus on the advantages of having fathers' staying at home or spending time with their children after work. This debate focuses solely upon mothers and conveniently forgets the other half of the equation. The fact that it is so often women attacking and inducing guilt in other women just never ceases to amaze me - with women like Penelope Leach, who needs chauvinists? Katy Smith, London
In one sense, the debate about the rights and wrongs of working mothers is nothing new. Bowlby in his early writings about attachment focussed on the importance of the mother/child relationship and supported the belief that mothers should remain at home to care for their children. I worked for many years as a health visitor and strongly believe that this debate needs to be balanced against issues such as maternal/child mental health. Post-natal depression even in its mildest form may have an effect on the mother child relationship and subsequent development of the child. For some women the return to work, whether on a part- or full-time basis, is part of the healing process and opens the way to a significantly improved relationship between mother and child and a better outcome for the child than if the mother had remained at home. Jane Arnott, Canterbury
I heard a comment on a talk radio show which summed up this debate on mothers staying at home being the best for children. The comment was something like "It is better to put your socks on your feet, to drive your car on the left-hand side of the road in London, to open a can of beans before trying to eat them and not to waste your time listening to someone stating the bleeding obvious! Tom Edwards, Bromley
These statistics are always subjective. Parents can only do what they feel is the best for their child, themselves and the circumstances they are in. I am very lucky, I am an only parent. I mostly work from home around my daughter's timetable. I do have days when I am in an office or have to fly somewhere, but I try to keep them to a minimum. I help to listen to children read at her school and try to be around after school. I then try to cram my work into the school hours and the evenings after she is in bed. The downside for me is that sometimes my weekends are very like my weekdays, and some evenings the work can go on till the early hours. Also, I work better bouncing ideas off colleagues, so it is sometimes a lonely existence. My daughter is blissfully unaware of most of this. I am lucky and doing the best I can. Karen Scott, Shefford, Bedfordshire
The old debate raises its head yet again. As usual, it is the middle-class mother or those who have a choice who are in the firing line. My mother had to work, most working-class mothers had to, and not for luxuries either. Some women don't have a choice, so why this endless hand-wringing and guilt? If we follow this reasoning then the children of single, stay-at-home mothers should be streets ahead of the rest. As we know, they often aren't. Carole Tyrrell, London
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