If you've ever had a baby, you probably know what it's like to feel so exhausted and stressed that, in your darkest hour, you fantasise the worst. Parents may feel angry and vulnerable after weeks of sleep deprivation. While we don't like to talk about it, the reality is that babies under the age of one year are four times more likely than the rest of the population to be murdered. Tragically, after hours of crying and many sleepless, broken nights, parents lose it and shake their babies to death. The British NSPCC's ludicrous reaction to this is a media campaign with images of smiling mothers and babies, accompanied by slogans like "by bedtime she wanted to shake him like a rag doll".

While it is healthy to challenge the idealised motherhood role, this campaign may do the opposite of what it intends. It may be perceived as giving parents tacit permission to lose control. Parents don't need somebody telling them they feel angry sometimes - they know that. What parents of young babies really need is practical support, as in Holland, where all new parents have a specially trained woman who comes to the house to mother the mother. With families more and more isolated from traditional social supports, the fact that so many of us emerge intact from the punishing experience of 24-hour baby care is a testimony to the survival instincts of mothers and babies alike.