We think of the internet as a highly sophisticated modern tool. But at its core are two timeless concepts: communication and community. As the real world becomes increasingly frightening and depersonalised, the internet is fostering tight-knit communities, brought together by common causes and concerns, yet physically thousands of miles apart.

Of course, a lot of this stuff is random and/or inane, and some of it is very definitely criminal. But the best of it is fascinating and intellectually stimulating. Not to mention useful, especially if you happen to belong to the one half of the human race that tends to be left holding the baby.

Websites such as mumsnet.com, which combines a lively discussion forum with reliable and influential consumer advice, have proved hugely fertile breeding grounds for ideas, advice or simply letting off steam.

The only thing that’s really new here is the medium. As the existence of the Cooperative Correspondence Club shows, we are not the first generation of women to feel torn between maternal fulfilment and intellectual growth, to agonise over our lack of enthusiasm for the more mundane aspects of child-rearing, to feel excluded and marginalised and (whisper it) bored.

The knowledge that Joan, Rose and her contemporaries felt much the same as many of us today is both comforting and depressing. Comforting since it means that we are not mad or ill or ungrateful to feel this way; depressing since it means that in almost 100 years not much has really changed.

Indeed, as Rose points out, this new “having it all” lark — ie, children and a career — might well be the worst of both worlds. I laughed when I read that she, at least, had a cook and a live-in maid. I recently wrote a post on Times Online’s new Alpha Mummy blog (I know, embarrassing name, there’s nothing alpha about me, I’m afraid, although of course my colleagues are all brilliant) saying what working mothers really need is a wife. After all, that’s how men have managed all these years.

I’ll leave you with this one thought. We live in a world where you can get tax relief on a chauffeur’s salary but none whatsoever on childcare. Granted, having a chauffeur is a nice perk if you happen to be a busy businessman, and I’m sure all those men shouting down mobile phones between important meetings make a vital contribution to our economy.

But if a woman can’t afford to pay for childcare, she can’t work at all. Ridiculous, no? Or could it be, perhaps, exactly what they want?

SARAH VINE

1937

“Early morning is a period of chivvying and chasing. Lucky Daddy who dresses placidly and half asleep...”

“I had never cooked a meal or ironed a shirt in my life...mytears mingled with soap suds as I tried to get white collars clean”

“I hate the thought of no more babies in the house, yet the more one has, the more one’s life lacks a certain graciousness”

From the Cooperative Correspondence Club

2007

“What working mums really need is a wife. Someone else who will get up in the night and then again at 6.15am”

“Here we are, postfeminist, postcapitalist, postmodern... and making it up as we go along”

“Can I really be feeling a pull towards the back-breaking minute by minute care of two tiny children?”

From Alpha Mummy

timesonline.typepad.com/alphamummy