Linda was very excited when we bumped into each other a few days ago. The £250,000 question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire last month was what was a bichon frise. She knew the correct answer because I have one, and that was how we got acquainted in the first place. Me, taking the dog for a night-time walk, her waving to me from a travelling workers' bus.
Linda is the same age as me, has the same number of children, and both our nine-year-olds suffer from allergies, which led us to the merits of having a dog that doesn't shed. The difference is that I earn in some hundreds of words what she earns in a 35-hour week.
She is a more typical woman in labour force terms. But as far as "individualisation" goes, I'm the typical citizen and Linda, for all intents and purposes, doesn't count. She could have been a millionaire if she'd been on that show rather than cleaning offices by night. Instead, because the welfare system isn't individualised, we'll both receive exactly the same increases in respect of our three children, despite our different incomes and the fact that my partner is usually earning too.
The difference between mothers is not primarily between those who work outside the home and those who work within it, but between women like Linda and me. We are full-time mothers, whether we are physically with our children or not. What divides us is the varying capacities we have because of our relative incomes. She works nights because she can't afford childcare, I work days because I can. Only an ostrich could believe that a return to 1950s family values is the way to address the crisis in family culture that we share. But that is how the current debate is moving. The workplace being what it is, wherever it is, there are now three categories of worker under discussion - women, men and mothers. That needs to change.
RATHER than change, the Government's new stay-home spouse allowance introduces yet another round of mothering wars. Although a family wage is the logical corollary of the stay-home allowance, few individuals earn enough to make up a family wage any more. Expedience apart, the stay-home spouse allowance does nothing to raise the status of parenthood.
Consolidating the better-off and affirming the merits of one specific parenting style doesn't contribute to the debate on family values. It ties us up in 1950s-style apron strings.
Thinking about how best to develop family values has become much more sophisticated since Fianna Fail made this promise in its preelection manifesto. Following on the 1995 UK report by Prof A.H. Halsey and Michael Young, the Irish social partners agreed that a universal parent wage was the most equitable way to promote children's welfare and raise the status of parenting. This week, Dr David Madden's studies backed that up by affirming how children gain most through targeted measures such as child benefit. The new allowance does not follow such principles.
The consequences of a parent wage for Linda, me and our stay-home neighbour Kevin would be dramatic - each of our children would gain, according to our individual financial resources. The consequences for the Government would be just as beneficial because it could develop its policy of individualisation - and extend it to welfare - without snaring up the tax system as the new stay-home allowance does.
Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but what I detect in the current debate are two genuine concerns, both of which reveal the extent of our ambition for the kind of socio-economic relations we want to build.
One is to deal fairly with every member of society in as far as is possible. The other is a deeply anxious undercurrent about whether the economy as currently structured conflicts with social and human imperatives to give children the best upbringing we can.
No one said it would be easy to sort this out. We're bound to get some of it wrong, as Charlie McCreevy did 10 days ago.
SOMETIMES when you're so close to the trees, it's hard to see the shape of the forest. From the branch I'm perched on, it is encouraging to measure the increasing use of terms such as "family-friendly workplaces" from certain politicians and IBEC representatives, but worrying that the term may in fact imply "women-friendly" measures only.
That's why an intermediate layer of childcare will not help integrate economic and social concerns unless it is part of a cohesive package that includes child poverty-proofing, proper paternity and maternity leave, as well as other family-friendly measures. Chief of these is the universal parental payment which needs to replace this out-dated and inadequate stay-home spouse's allowance.
The dogs in the street know that motherhood was changing: the row about family values asserted that citizens knew it, but wanted it to change on their terms. What is less mentioned in the current debate is how fatherhood is changing too, not quite so fast but just as dramatically. Men who were willing to put their employers first in return for earning a family wage, having no other choice, are stating loud and clear that they want to enjoy their parenthood too.
The history of the workplace is one where family and its obligations must remain invisible. Every man knows that, and most women in the workplace learn it fast. Confining family-friendly measures to the traditional needs of women only makes it more likely that we will create the kind of "Mommy track" now operating in the United States, and eventually recognise it for the social and economic cul-de-sac it is. For as long as parenting styles are prioritised according to their gender and location, the Government and the rest of us can't but remain tied to old apron strings.
Traditional divisions that make work and home separate places won't address the range of parenting situations and needs now developing. Traditional expectations that make stale notions of motherhood the norm for all styles and genders of parents won't help develop the labour market, or develop the foundations of social capital on which we all rely.