Supermums under fire

A new survey from Cambridge University suggests that support for "have it all" mums is on the wane. Comparing stats from the eighties, nineties and noughties, the poll suggests that increasing numbers of men and women believe that family life suffers if a mother continues to work rather than filling the traditional shoes of a stay-at-home mum."Supermums" who juggle adrenaline-fuelled days at the top of the career tree with baking fairy cakes and reading bedtime stories are considered by many to be the stuff of legend. Juggling this precarious load, the survey suggests, is like living under a huge, wobbly stack of Jenga blocks... Yet, despite more people saying it can't work: it does and it must. While being a mum and a homemaker is undoubtedly the hardest job in the world, mums deserve the option to be "super" career women if they want. Their professional success pre-motherhood is every bit as hard-earned as their partner's and their work ethic as committed. As the kid of a working mum, I salute the Herculean effort it took for her to hold down a job and be as complete a mum as I could have wanted. The sad truth is that motherhood is like a handicap in the workplace -- with flexible working hours just edging into most employers' consciousness and challenging part-time roles a myth -- it's a wonder that any mum returns from maternity leave with a clear route defined on her career map. As a mum that juggles home-working with caring for a son, I raise a toast to women that stay at home too. Let's face it there's no easy option: there's just hard-won choices and the best we can do in our given circumstances, driven by career goals, financial pressures and, most of all, the quest to be great parents. And our own intuition, rather than the opinions of others, will tell us whether we are doing what's best for our families.