1 JANUARY 2005, Page 19

You can’t do both

From Joyce Walker Sir: With reference to the article ‘Help mothers by cutting taxes’ (11 December) I have the perfect answer to all the problems in this article: Don’t have children.

After all, working mothers are going to see so little of their children that they won’t actually be ‘bringing them up’ themselves. Working mothers are probably too tired to bother with their little ones when they get home from working all day. Apart from at weekends, mothers who work probably have very little to do with their children’s lives anyway, so why bother having them at all?

There wouldn’t be any more problems; mothers could all go out and earn their fabulous money without having to pay a nanny, and all the mothers who love their children enough to bring them up themselves, as it is meant to be, could help shape the little ones’ lives and give them a sound basis for what a happy married life can really be — something that is little known nowadays.

Joyce Walker

Kendal, Cumbria