Anyone who reads me often knows that there are certain publications that tend to put me off my lunch. The UK's Telegraph is one example, especially after a completely unprofessional sudden change of headline as an attempt to step back from a clumsy and irresponsible move.

Well, once again The Telegraph is annoying me.

This time, with a positively insulting slap at women on the opinion page.

Making it worse is the fact that this was written BY a woman, indicating to me how insidious the sexism is in the Telegraph's writings.

Women, it is true, are fickle. First they wanted to be the same as men.

... But once women realised they could do it and were even rather good at it, it slowly dawned on them that it wasn't that enjoyable.

Piling on the angst of children being raised by nannies and au pairs as women rose through glass ceilings and achieved dominance in the business world, the point seems to be that what the world needs now ... or Britain, anyway ... is women who want less and companies willing to accommodate them.

They might struggle to continue as a brain surgeon but they should be able to work as a GP or as a paediatrician and make use of their training while still seeing their child in the nativity play.

HELLO! What year is this?

A headteacher at a high-flying girls' school says she finds herself in a predicament. "We used to tell all our girls they could become brain surgeons or Nasa scientists and many of them did. But they come back for reunions now and most of them have given up. It was too hard to be perfect at everything. I'm beginning to think we should just teach them to cook, paint and play the piano, so at least they have some hobbies while they are bringing up their children."

So the way to deal with women getting pummeled from all angles is to train them to expect less? To be less? To want less?

Imagine the uproar if that message was to be sent to boys and men.

Sorry, sonny, but seeking to excel is not something we encourage here. You'll be better off if you set your sights low and aim to come in under the radar. After all, the next generation is counting on you for warm cookies and boo-boo kisses, not a cure for cancer or invention of that beamy-uppy thing to take the place of air travel.

Flextime is the idea here, and it's a good one, but presented as it is it's more part of the problem than any move toward a solution. It's a girl thing, you see. Women need flexible work schedules to allow time to be home with the kids and employers may not like that. Why would they want to hand out weeks or months of leave for mothers?

Isn't it just possible that if men stepped up fully as parents this would not be an issue? If a sick kid meant an every-other-time response by alternate parents wouldn't the leave level? What about an every-other-kid tag-team approach that would have maternity and paternity leave equal out over the course of a family's growth?

Really, now ... are fathers parents, or are they not? If they are, where are they? And isn't parent also a verb?

I'm old enough to remember the days when women's choices were slim pickings and I am appalled to read that in the UK now the number of women in senior management positions has fallen by 40% in the past five years, the pay gap between men and women is increasing again and women are, "once again the junior employees, secretaries and canteen staff or sidelined part-timers."

Appalled on the one hand, and outraged on the other ... outraged over the postulation that this circumstance has been predicated on women being "fickle", by not knowing what we want ... I am beyond incredulous.

As if ... AS IF ... women should be expected to reign in their goals, trim their dreams, wrap their ambitions in a cute little box and place them on a shelf with their aspirations! Where is this coming from?

When my oldest daughter was a child, I took comfort in the mood of the times that gave her a future beyond what had been possible for me. There was no question that there were no restrictions on the rainbows she could aim for. Birth control was easily accessible. Universities were welcoming. Her talents and skills were in demand. She was encouraged from all directions to dream, and dream big.

Thoughts at the time she entered the world as an adult tended toward the wide-open opportunity sort, expanding and including and advancing as time went on. Today, she's pushing 40, has a career she loves AND a family she treasures.

Now, though, it appears that the pendulum having reached far less than half way is already swinging backward, and with a vengeance almost as if there's hope that we have learned our lessons for being too big for our boots.

My youngest daughter is only two-and-a-half. What will she get?

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts that will come to her from having an older mom is a sense of recent history and the dangers of complacency, and an unwillingness to go gently with a flow that runs the wrong direction. I remember how it looks down that way and it ain't pretty.


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