...entitlement being the main aim of the game!

The author says:"calling the dilemmas they face "choices" simply sharpens their sense of personal responsibility,"

Welcome to the real world, Monica. If a new father wants to spend time with his offspring, but has to go to work to pay the mortgage, is he in any less of a dilemma?

Adults face dilemmas every day, some of which are serious, some less so, but mature adults exercise their judgement to discharge their responsibilities as they see them. It seems to me that a great deal of the article is an attempt to justify the proposition that mothers should be exempted from having to take responsibility for making choices, yet I'm sure that if anyone suggested that this makes them less worthy of the respect due to adults the author would be the first to claim sexism.

She goes on to say:"they can equip themselves with a robust sense of entitlement, and articulate their demands accordingly"

Well Monica, you'll be pleased to know that your own sense of entitlement is very clear. It's a shame it's not based on anything more substantial than your gender.

Trust antiseptic to genderise the issue, and then immediately whine, whine, whine about about mens rights. He and his fellow comrades in his radi-mens rights groups genderise everything. Comrade antiseptic is just carrying on the tradition.

My mother had no choice - she wasn't allowed to work.

My wife had a choice - as well as raising three children, she could (and did) work, but she didn't have to, for financial or any other reason.

My daughters have no choice - they have to work.

That's progress, and the sign of a successful society.

Last night I watched a Sixties film on DVD with one of our children. She was amazed when I pointed out that the mansion owned by the millionaire in the film was no bigger than many houses in an estate close to us and the millionaire's pool was smaller and its surrounds more modest. The house had few of the 'necessary' electrial appliances and features of a modern home.

In my own suburb is the house that served the family (6 or 7 members) and entertaining purposes of a well-known mining and earthmoving millionaire. It was built in the late Fifties and occupied by the same family through to the mid Eighties. The subject house is on a single level and probably half the size of the many McMansions dotted throughout most housing estates.

Yes, it might take two to manage a mortgage these days but maybe, just maybe, some of our expectations have changed too and one wage is never enough. Even the most humble starter houses have two bathrooms and most couples have two cars, a swag of electronics, large 'communications' accounts and go out regularly for entertainment. Poor people run cars and houses that used to have two or more children to a room with some in the sleep-out now have a bedroom for all children, plus an extra as a study.

Having more choice is one thing but we have to be responsible for our own choices too. At the end of my life I am sure that if I am to regret anything it will be that I didn't spend as much time with my family and friends as I could have, not that the pool had square, rather than rounded ends.

This debate is the luxury of parents with the "normal" children. Try having a disabled child and watch all semblance of choice, equality, respect and entitlement disappear out the window. Mummy wars will be around issues like surviving, coping, eating and fear for the future. Basic, primitive stuff with not an ideological thought in place.