What women want is down to, well, what they want...

Recently there’s been talk of the new role of women in life.

Do working mothers cause family breakdown? Do stay at home mothers bleed the economy dry?

Should women be “wanting it all?” When they talk about “Women who have it all,” what is it that they actually mean?

A bank account full to bursting, a job they love 24/7, perfect children? Gosh that sounds like hard work.

What I think they mean is that as women, we now have the right and the opportunity to do whatever it is we want to do.

Housewife? Yes please. Workaholic? Fantastic.

What’s important is that you have what you want. However that may not necessarily be “all.”

When my son was born the most important thing to me was to be with him.

That’s all I wanted to do. I am self-employed and so apart from a few forays into work that I had previously signed up for, I did just that.

I was there for my son.

This did, however come with drawbacks.

Most prominently floating up a financial creek without a certain paddle, so we had to sit down one winter night with a pen, a paper and our red hot bank statements to decide what was important to us and what was not.

Eventually though, I felt the need to spread my wings and slowly but surely drifted back to work.

That was my decision and choice. Friends of mine couldn’t wait to get back.

Six weeks into motherhood and they were off, children with childminders and nine to five, six days a week became the norm once again.

Again that was their choice.

For some women the idea of staying at home for the rest of their life fills them with dread but I wouldn’t have wanted to miss my child’s early years.

I wanted more than anything else to spend an awful lot of time with him but we were lucky and some people can’t afford that luck.

So what have we learnt from the “have it all” argument.

Well that having it all could mean just the one thing; a child, a good job, a loving husband.

Or it could mean all three. Like I said sounds like hard work. I suppose it just depends on how exhausted you are at the end of the day?

So in that case I think I’ll just take the one.