Around the time I returned to work after the birth of my first child I went to visit a lawyer friend who had also just had a baby and had decided to stay at home to look after him.

The lunch was going fine until I said that I envied her not having a job: it must be nice to be with her son all day. She looked at me with something close to loathing. She did have a job, she snapped. Bringing up her child was most definitely a job, and a much more worthwhile one than anything to do with corporate law.

But was she right? Is motherhood a job? Margaret Thatcher thought it was — according to her, bringing up children was a management job. The Queen apparently thinks so too and told Kate Winslet that it was “the best job” there was.