Sure, you can take some time off work to spend with the kids but sometimes that's not possible and making arrangements for childcare can be costly, stressful and time-consuming.
 
Even Mummy and I are feeling the strain as our 17-month-old son's nursery has shut down for a fortnight and, shock horror, we've had to look after our own child ourselves!
 
Seriously, though, juggling work and family responsibilities appears to be getting more and more difficult for us all and a new report from Cambridge University revealed that growing numbers of people are concerned with the impact of working mums on family life.
 
Whereas in 1998, 51 per cent of women and 45.9 per cent of men believed family life would not suffer if a woman went to work, these figures dropped to 46 per cent of women and 42 per cent of men in 2002.
 
Which means the majority of us would like to see a return to more old-fashioned values, where Daddy plays provider and Mummy does her best as Suzie homemaker.
 
But with family budgets being stretched by rapidly rising food and fuel prices, is this actually possible? It seems to me that everything nowadays is geared towards two incomes coming in.
 
If we are going to continue down the route of both parents working, more flexible employment practices need to be available.

And not just for parents but for everyone - special treatment for those with children would only cause resentment in the workplace.
 
More and more people are finding that family life is becoming under threat, so something must be done to ensure it is protected. It's time Government and employers find a solution for our workaday woes.

A huge exodus from the workplace by fed-up parents wishing to downsize their lives would have a much more detrimental effect on the economy that our current credit crisis has caused.