My child was one of Nature's Tories pitted against a mother who was one of nurture's Lefties: it was no contest.

My ideals told me that men and women could both go out to work and be truly equal. My children told me something more complicated, something I really didn't want to hear. Their need for me was like the need for water or light: it had a devastating simplicity to it.

Men worry about childcare with their wallets, women feel it in their wombs.

The times you don't make it are the ones children remember, not the times you do.