First we had Cherie whining, as she decanted some vegetable soup from Chequers into a saucepan, that we weren’t paying for her to have a chef at Downing Street and she had to provide meals for her family because “no one else was volunteering”.

Then we had the news that working women are refusing to have second children, a sort of Lysistratan protest against the “triple burden” of working, doing all the childcare and two-thirds of the housework. And, oh yes, we also heard in the same report, entitled Family Work and Selection into Parenthood among British Couples by Pia Schober, presented at the British Household Panel Survey 2007 conference, that the new man is about as common as rocking-horse s***.

I have tried to lay aside my own agenda, and look with a clear eye at the mess we have got into with all this, with working mothers more Domestos devils than domestic goddesses, and have come up with a very uncomfortable conclusion.

But first, I would just like to say that I am right behind the movement to get men off the couch and out of the cave and into the kitchen and behind the fridge with the Cillit Bang, especially if their wives are mothers and earners too.

Men, if you’re reading this, please lay down the paper for a second and consider what you and your female partner have done over the course of this weekend. Which one of you cooked, cleaned, shopped, washed up, hung up the towels, made the beds, straightened the house, swept the floor, collected the recycling materials, put the children to bed, and which one of you read the papers, went for a run, cooked up a gourmet storm using every pan in the house and responded to a pleasantly voiced request to put their dirty plate in the dishwasher, please? I don’t know, but I can guess.

For some reason, men and women – sorry for the generalisation, but you know what I mean – are put together differently when it comes to the domestic sphere. Men seem to coexist happily with dirty plates and wet towels and muddy floors, indeed, they barely notice them, but these things cause women almost physical pain. There must be a reason.

And it must be this, that we bring up males to assume that housework and childcare, and maintenance and repetitive gruntwork – what the classical economists tellingly call “reproduction” work rather than “paid” work – is a woman’s preserve, and simply not their business. Every other day, it seems, I receive books in the post, called things such as How to Get it All Done or the Busy Mum’s Handbook, that are supposed to help women like me “navigate” our three areas of responsibility without going bonkers or getting divorced.

But this all brings us back to us, to women. Who brings up boys? Who juggles? Well, we do, of course, while our lazy husbands loaf about, right? I was chatting to another mother one summer, in a rented villa. Her 15-year-old son came in, rumpled in pyjamas, and sat down at the table. It was 11am. She fetched a bowl, with a sacramental air, and put it in front of him. Then she fetched a spoon. Then the milk from the fridge. Then the cereal from the cupboard. Then she tipped the cereal into the hulking lad’s bowl, and added the milk. For a wild moment I thought she was going to spoon the cornflakes into his mouth.

In Italy, three out of 10 divorces are caused by what frustrated wives call “mammoni”, men who are deeply attached to their mothers, who insist on indulging their sons, doing their cooking and laundry, cleaning their apartments and so on, well into adulthood.

It seems to me – as the quite frankly adoring mother of two cosseted sons – that this is where the problem starts. Even as we whinge about our burdens, we are somehow failing to stop the rot and to bring up our sons to be helpful husbands.

We will never breed the heroic generation of new men until women have learnt how to be new mothers first.

Would I be available to do BBC Breakfast, the producer asks. I hesitate.

I do love my sleep and the programme starts before most teenagers have gone to bed.

“What time?” is my first question, rather than “what on?” So I am already breaking my first rule, one that I often piously advise others to follow but rarely observe myself, which is don’t go on unless you have something to say.

“Between eight and nine,” the producer responds pleasantly, which is the answer I am looking for, so I accept even though the subject under discussion is – even by my lowly standards – so insubstantial as to be almost weightless. As I live only 10 minutes from Television Centre, I can see my morning panning out nicely. Get up at half-seven, do a quick turn, walk the dog, latte . . .

At 5.45am precisely the telephone by my bed peals. “Your car’s outside,” says a voice. Whaaat?

I turn on my mobile and there are six missed calls, all from BBC producers, from midnight onwards, trying to reach me to tell me that I am now, due to a rejigging of the running order, on at 6.20am and again an hour later to disclose my insights to the nation.

I hurl on clothes, whiz to White City, twirl in and out of make-up, and then go on set.

I retire to the green room to await my next appearance. Then I start to feel a little silly. In one corner, a bearded imam is eating a scone and discussing the Muslim mood with a security expert, who is checking his BlackBerry and fielding calls from other media outlets.

In another Melanie Phillips, the columnist, is in conversation with Frank Gardner, the BBC’s wheelchair-bound, dignified and impressive security correspondent.

I grab a tub of fruit salad, sit down in a corner, head down. But the imam politely asks me, “So, what are you here to talk about?”

I look around the room. He is asking me on what subject I have risen at sparrow’s fart, at a critical moment of national security, to discuss on live television.

I wonder whether to say “Jacqui Smith’s cleavage”, or to admit the truth, which is that I am exclusively revealing my views on the unwelcome new trend of parents competing to give teachers the most lavish present at the end of term.

But for once, my mouth opens and no words come out.

rachel.johnson@sunday-times.co.uk

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