American workers get hefty tax breaks for each non-earning dependent they support, including spouses, children and aged relatives. This encourages couples with dependent children to send the highest-earner out to work full-time, while the other stays home full-time with the kids. The system doesn't encourage part-time working at all, so there isn't this glamourising of the part-time job that causes so much workplace inefficiency, resentment, stress and career suicide among working British women. And it is really quite common for the full-time homemaker to be a man, particularly where the couples are graduates. Coming from Britain, I found these male career homemakers mildly shocking - they are much rarer in Britain. Now why would that be? Katherine Kirk, Maryland, USA
Married women generally work these days because of economic necessity born out of large mortgages, even for the humblest of homes, high council taxes, high gas, electricity and petrol prices, not to mention government charges such as VAT, National Insurance and the like. Very few men earn enough to 'allow' their wives to stay home indefinitely to raise a family. In addition, now that women are better educated than ever before, there are more opportunities for them to contribute in a far more significant way than at any other time in our history, why should they be regarded as 'baby fodder'? But here's the 'rub' - how many women are completely satisfied with working outside the home? I suspect the answer is not too many, given the stresses of trying to juggle motherhood with a career. Some manage it of course, but a great many more do not, at least not to their satisfaction. Colin Cumner, Adelaide, Australia
To all the men who have commented that no one can have it all, and that men have a raw deal, let me, as a woman, respond. Thank you. You are absolutely 100 per cent correct. We women must stop being so selfish and must recognise that, every time we demand something for ourselves, other people have to give up something in exchange. If I want to work part time, a co-worker has to work longer hours to compensate for me. If I want to take a week off at Christmas or whenever, a co-worker is obliged to provide cover for me. I just learned last week that several of the men, and all of the single childless women in my workplace, have never been able to take time off at Christmas. The reason for this is simply that selfish mothers like me always demand that we be given as much time off as we want. Since the business must remain open, my co-workers have had to bear 100 per cent of the financial and emotional costs involved. How long can I go on demanding such sacrifices as "my right"? Why do I think that only I have a right to a work-life balance? Do I really believe that only I am entitled to spend quality time at home, go on holiday, buy a house etc? Is it fair that I expect other people to work much longer hours in order to subsidise my comfortable lifestyle? Perhaps it's time I stopped whining about all the things I can't have and, instead, recognised that I am already unjustifiably privileged. If I want more out of life, I must sort that out for myself and stop expecting other people to pay for it. I used to tell people that becoming a mother had made me much less selfish, because I now had children to consider. Now I realise that the opposite is true. Nowadays, all my time and attention is focused on my children and I completely ignore the rest of the world. I am disgusted at myself and heartily ashamed of my own behaviour. Name and address withheld
What is it about mothers that makes them think they are special? They are the most arrogant, selfish people in the world. As a single, childless woman, I am sick and tired of having to work extra hours, unpaid, in order to support other people's families. It seems that only working mothers have a right to family life, which they interpret as meaning they receive 150 per cent of the pay for doing only 25 per cent of the work. At the same time, non-working mothers seem to think that they should enjoy the kind of luxury lifestyle that hard working people can only dream of. People choose to become mothers. Therefore, they should be prepared to make the sacrifices that inevitably ensue. They should stop demanding that other people make all those sacrifices for them. Name and address withheld
I think it's important to remember that men need to want to have children as well as women, and the age that men want to settle down has increased along with women. I am 26, and I know no men in my peer group who would be happy to be a father now. As a woman in my mid-twenties I'm bored of being blamed for all this. It's a total social shift for both sexes. Of course I work, and of course I want to do a job that I enjoy and do it well. I think all the questions that are asked of women should also be asked of men. Do they want to give up a career for their children? Do they want to have children before they are 35? Can they pay for a house and children and so on? Victoria Bolton, London
Of course anyone can "have it all". One only has to define what "all" is to them. To me "all" is being single, no children, being able to do what I want when I want, living within my means, a job that satisfies without a lot of stress, being healthy by being responsible for my well-being, not having a lot of "stuff", living simply, and having a fairly good lending-library close by. That is my "all" and I've had it for the better part of my 50 years. You'll never "have it all" if you let others define "all" for you. Name and address withheld
Feminism was about women having the choice to work, and to be seen as equals as men. Unfortunately we took it too far and then wanted it all. As society now shows women cannot have it all. House prices means that both men and women have to work, children are dumped in nurseries all day and in front of the TV at night. I am all for women in the workplace, but you can't have that and children. Something will suffer, and if it's not your children it will be your work. Women now have choices of how to live their lives, and I choose not to have it all. I am therefore much happier and far less stressed because of that decision. Marianne Phillips, Lytham St Annes
In Camilla's article she asks, "Why else would we be the first generation to believe that we 'cannot afford' to raise our own children, when average national income is higher than ever?" Because now you need two incomes to buy the average house rather than one. In short, we aren't really richer than the previous generation. I am the same age as my parents were when they bought the large family home that I grew up in on my father's sole income. I now work in the same profession as my father but I could never afford the same house without my partner also working full-time. Stephen Grindle, London
After nearly 35 years of marriage, I am surprised that women ever felt the need to embrace the feminist movement; women have always been the most dominant member in a relationship, in control and - if they put their minds to it - able to organise matters and get anything they wanted without the desire to have their supremacy trumpeted to the world at large. Tom Edwards, Bromley
As one of the first generation of "house husbands" - my children are now grown up - I cannot, for the life of me, understand women who find child-rearing boring. It was the most fascinating and fulfilling experience of my life to bring up my two young lads. I had no supervisor and arranged my day's work as I wanted. Now they both have top-notch degrees from Imperial College and Oxford, and we're the best of pals. "Drudgery?" - you're joking! Edmund Burke, Kingston upon Thames
Of course women can have it all - as long as men pay for it and society collapses because of it. We allow positive discrimination so that women can get jobs they don't deserve; we allow ridiculous (and costly) preferential treatment for women once in the workplace; we allow women to fail at these same jobs then claim ludicrous payouts for vacuous claims of sex discrimination; we allow women's wants (never needs) to dominate the divorce courts; we allow men to be pilloried for domestic abuse when women commit much of it; we allow women to dominate arguments about all these issues at home/work/anywhere by the simple expedient of bursting into tears and we allow massively more research spending on women's health issues despite men dying earlier than women. And on top of all of this and so, so much more, we are forced to listen to their constant moaning about how hard done-by they are and how they are worth so much more than men. Western women are the most pampered, fussed-over species that has ever existed on this planet ... and yet the self-indulgent whining never ends. Derek Sinclair, Dundee
I wonder why women thought that feminism meant one could have it all? Man have always accepted that one cannot have it all and do not complain about the situation. If you were to look closely at the lives of successful men you would find that they did not have it all. They also have their regrets as they missed out on a happy marriage, time with children, socialising with friends or just time to admire nature and contemplate. Vinay Mehra, Purley, Surrey
