Readers of The Beano at any time in the past 40 years will be familiar with Billy Whizz, the character who does everything at superhuman speed. His legs go like eggbeaters; every drawing of him has a ZOOM! or a ZIP! behind him.

Billy charges around saving the world, wonderfully oblivious of how destructive his supersonic passage can be. Everything in his path goes flying. He never listens, is careless of risk, has a short attention span, forgets what's he's done and - classically - has a calm little brother called Alfie, always being patted on the head for not breaking things.

Ring any bells? Billy Whizz, who first appeared in 1964, is a perfect depiction of a child with all the symptoms of severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is plainly undiagnosed even in 2008, as he is still buzzing around like a demented hornet, breaking stuff and driving his parents barmy.

And what a shocking case of medical negligence, too. Billy clearly ought to be under a psychiatrist, on a high dose of Ritalin and sitting quietly in a corner studying. That way, he wouldn't be disrupting class, causing traffic pile-ups and knocking people off ladders. And his mother and father would not have to run round patiently picking up the pieces.

And that is the crux of the matter. ADHD is a parenting issue, pure and simple. The debate over the use of Ritalin and other psychostimulant drugs in childhood strikes right at the heart of modern society. We're talking about a condition that, tragically, has become illustrative of something much bigger - that our culture makes children unhappy. Our priorities are to give children what suits us, not what suits them. This whole issue is about our inability to see what's in front of our noses and to accept responsibility for it.

Instead of being dealt with as a problem that covers the normal spectrum of behaviour which all children demonstrate at some time, ADHD has become highly medicalised. Why? Because in a convenience society, hard-pressed working mothers and fathers want packaged, compliant, convenient children. The infant equivalent of the microwave meal: no preparation, push the button, ready in minutes.

A busy society finds hyperactive children an inconvenience and embarrassment, and one that cannot be solved simply by throwing an Xbox at them. Of course there are extreme cases that need help, but the huge rise in ADHD diagnosis (which has more than doubled in the past five years) is because the label is the perfect excuse for antisocial behaviour. A pharmaceutical solution (the magic bullet, kiddiecoke, call it what you will) will transform a Billy Whizz into Alfie Calm - and allow parents to continue their own manic, neglectful lifestyles.

Somewhere along the line imperfect parenting has got off the hook. As the once selfishly determined, working mother of a once hyperactive child - who was healed by love and attention - I learnt my lesson the hard way. So please allow me to be blunt.

Parents can drive any child to a pitch of manic, attention-seeking, reckless, hyperactive behaviour simply by not being there for them; by not listening. Or worse, by being there in the flesh, but not in emotion. As my son learnt, there are many ways for a mother to be absent.

I always believed that work came first. I refused to compromise when I was a young mother. Full-time work was the priority. My reward was a marriage breakdown and a child who displayed what could be now readily diagnosed as moderate symptoms of ADHD: emotionally fractured, bouncing off walls, loud, silly, fidgety, angry, insecure, risk-seeking, unable to concentrate.

Fortunately, I wised up. It took me more than a decade of intense emotional spadework, and some professional advice, to reverse the damage I had done to my child, but I did it. I didn't stop the day job, but I used my brains for the first time and sacrificed many things.

Essentially, our society is drugging more and more unhappy children because parents believe they haven't the time or the emotional, physical or financial resources to cope. In fact they have; they are simply unwilling to make sacrifices, in terms of material wealth and self-fulfilment, to give their children the time and attention they need. A cynic might say this is because they understand that it is very hard old-fashioned work, with no shortcuts.

Which is where Ruth Kelly comes into this story. I know very little of the Transport Secretary other than that she has four children aged 11 or under and has been in frontline politics for the past decade. I have no idea how her children behave, or if any of them displays the remotest signs of being a Billy Whizz. (From my perception of the serious-minded Ms Kelly, I wouldn't be surprised if all of them, from the toddler up, aren't sitting reading Proust without any chemical cosh at all.)

But the point is that Ms Kelly has decided to change her priorities and downsize her job. She knows her children need to see more of her than they do - as does every child born of woman - and she has decided to put them first. “If I do not, then I know that this is something I will come to regret deeply.”

Whether her actions are expedient politically is neither here nor there. Doubtless male commentators are guffawing with cynicism, but every mother knows she is right. Women simply cannot have it all and expect everyone else to emerge unscathed. And our children are always, but always, the first victims. It's not fair, but it's the truth.

Oh, deep down, as our shoulders sag with exhaustion and envy, we know all right. Despite our fierce feminist beliefs, our iron code of independence, we know that the only difference between Ms Kelly and most of us is that she has had done something about it. She knows that her children miss her. She knows something is rotten in the state of modern parenting. This country would be a happier place if more women followed her lead.

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