It will be remembered as the report that told mothers that it is bad to work because preschool nurseries spawn antisocial children. There is, in fact, much more to the National Evaluation of the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative, a study undertaken by Sandra Mathers and Kathy Sylva, of the University of Oxford.

Parents will be alarmed to read that preschool nurseries beget insulting, bossy, petulant, self-centred and greedy children. The findings will entrench those feelings of guilt that all but the most heartless parent endures at the drop-off. It is a moment of separation that reprises the always difficult decision to pursue a career where the more natural desire may be to stop at home.

The study’s authors are not alone in identifying the connection between preschool nurseries and children with poor behavioural standards. Theirs is an authoritative report, well supported by respected contributing organisations, including the Institute of Fiscal Studies. But its impact will be all the greater because it is the latest in a string of fellow-travelling studies that suggest it is damaging to separate parent and child.

Context, however, is critical. It is incorrect to suggest that this authoritative report concludes that preschooling is bad. Rather, the report suggests that full-time preschooling is bad in some aspects. The report concludes that negatives become noticeable among children parked in nurseries for 35 hours a week or more. Children under the age of 3½ are more adversely affected by full-time education: children under the age of 18 months are on the receiving end of the most measurable consequences.

Yet the report’s authors carefully point out that preschooled children are better with their speech, numerical and motor skills from an earlier age. Preschooled children are also more confident and make friends more easily.

Mothers and fathers have always worked, of course, in the fields or mills. And the Oxford researchers fall comfortably into line with those legions of opinion that suggest it is good, on the whole, for parents to work. Work is good because job satisfaction often engenders happiness among parents. Children with a sense of independence and self-sufficiency, meanwhile, reduce stresses within families. Most importantly, families with working parents are richer.

On close examination, work is less a part of the problem than part of the solution. Some problems seem to arise if children are separated from their parents for regular and long periods. The repercussions of poverty, however, are far worse.

The implications for the Government’s plan to see “wraparound” care for school-age children stretching from 8am to 6pm seem clear enough. Wraparound care, it appears, may sometimes be necessary but it is not something the Government should suggest parents must seek to use.

Government does deserve credit for helping parents into work through its childcare initiatives, among other things. More good would be done, with minimal implications for the welfare of children, by reforming workplace law in ways that make it easier for companies and other employers to hire and fire people on more flexible terms. The tragedy is that inflexible European regulations are making it increasingly difficult for companies to offer employees and their families that flexibility.