SO what about mothers? Or dads, come to that? The Government has just launched its new plans for child welfare.

In the wake of the Victoria Climbie tragedy, its great aim is to keep track of every child in Britain.

There will be new children's departments, files, numbers and a children's commissioner. The hope is that no child in need of care and protection will again fall through the gaps in the system. Children's safety and happiness are paramount.

Meanwhile, back in ordinary families, there is also trouble brewing.

According to new figures, most families need one full-time worker and one part-time worker to fund the cost of living. In places where the price of houses is ridiculous - which is most of the country - couples need to be both full-time earners to pay the mortgage. Which could explain some other disturbing figures.

One in three children under four years old has a TV set in their bedroom. 86 per cent of children watch six hours of television a day. Many parents are just too shattered when they come home from work to make much time for their children.

Many four-year-olds starting school can barely talk properly and cannot hold a conversation. They cannot communicate, do their buttons or hold a knife and fork. Often, they don't even know how to play.

These are the things that toddlers have always learnt, literally, at their mothers' knees. Not any more. Staying at home with pre-school children will soon be a luxury available only to the very rich.

One of the comments made by all the women who recently tried reliving the 1950s lifestyle was what a pleasure it was to have more time with their children without the television on all the time and what a difference it made.

Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt wants to get more women out to work sooner. Mothers who choose to stay at home to look after their children are made to feel like second-class citizens and slackers. There is little in the way of tax incentives or allowances to encourage mothers to stay at home and care for their children themselves.

It used to be working mothers who were demonised. Those days, thankfully, have gone. But now maybe the pendulum has swung too far the other way, especially when it comes to pre-school children. We say we want the best for children, all children. Yet we look down on people who put their children first. Odd, isn't it? Maybe the Children's Commissioner could take a look at that. Until we get the balance right again, many small children will still be missing out on some of life's basic skills and pleasures. Which all seems so dreadfully sad.

OK, the Braemar Games probably isn't everyone's idea of a knicker-gripping afternoon but Cherie Blair's great gaping yawn (Did her mum never tell her about putting her hand over her mouth?) made her look like a sulky, bad-mannered child. Still, as she was in Scotland in September when she yawned, about 5,000 midges probably took the opportunity to swoop in and tickle her tonsils. That'll teach her.

HOORAY for the Calendar Girls! Middle-aged women are - unless they're Joanna Lumley - virtually invisible in today's society. We slip through life unnoticed and unremarked. Indeed, there was a very successful spy a few years ago who took ages to be discovered - because she was a middle-aged woman in a cardi just getting on with her job and no one took a blind bit of notice of her as she filched top secret plans.

But now the Calendar Girls have made people realise that beneath the cardigans and greying hair, there beat hearts of passion - as well as utter daftness, originality and a blithe indifference to what the world thinks.

The Calendar Girls have done a great deal for charity. They've done even more for the image of 50-something women, which is all very cheering.

Unless, of course, you happen to be a spy.

LIFE in Afghanistan has changed, but not that much. A group of young women there met recently to campaign, quietly and carefully, for greater rights. They are asking for the right to have an education, not to be married against their will and not to be sold into slavery. If you were thinking about moaning about your lot this morning, maybe it's time to think again.

Published: 10/09/2003