In America, they call it "the mommy wars": the supposed battle between mothers who work outside the home and those who leave the workforce to concentrate on childcare. But in reality -- in Ireland, at least -- there's a strong sense of solidarity between mothers, whether they work outside the home or not.

Today, more than half of Irish mothers of children under three work outside the home. But when I was a small child in the late 1970s and early 80s, I literally didn't know any other family besides mine whose mother had a day job.

I, and all the other adult children of working mothers I know, don't feel like we missed out on anything because our mothers were out working when we were tiny -- we always knew our parents loved us and we were proud of our mothers.

But from the way the media often depicts working mothers, you could be excused for thinking we spent our childhoods wailing constantly for our selfish mothers, before going out to sniff glue and hang around the streets causing trouble. Working mothers get blamed for a lot.

"Some like to present a conflict between working and stay-at-home mothers, but in my experience that conflict doesn't really exist," says child psychologist Anne O'Connor, founder of Irish parenting website Rollercoaster.ie.

"When you're with a group of women who are mothers, whether stay-at-home or not, once the conversation gets onto children all those different barriers move away."

The working mothers of my parents' generation, who had their children in the 1970s, had few role models in Irish public life.

Today's mothers, at least, can see their choices reflected in the mainstream media. And one of the most admired working mums is RTE's Miriam O'Callaghan, who manages to combine her high profile and well respected journalism career with being the mother of eight children, aged between 22 and three.

"I studied law, and then I got a good job in TV, and I didn't want to give it up," says O'Callaghan of her decision to keep on working. "I suppose it was for both selfish and economic reasons. I both had to work and I liked to work -- my own mother had worked."

Although she clearly doesn't want to be seen as some sort of supermum ("I'm the opposite of super!") O'Callaghan says that she does get a lot of positive feedback from other working mothers.

"People do say they love to see me up there," she says. "If you have eight kids, people know it's a hard slog. The fact you can get up there on TV at all and not look like you're dying -- I think women like that. And women love to see a woman with a load of kids who seems to be in a man's world."

O'Callaghan believes women shouldn't feel guilty for working outside the home. "Men don't go around worrying whether they're wrecking their child when they go to work, so why should women?" she asks. "We're too hard on ourselves."

She has huge respect for women who stay at home. "I would always make the point that working outside the home is infinitely easier than working inside the home."

It's a feeling echoed by other working mothers I talked to. Far from the stereotype of the career woman who sneers at women in the home, they all expressed both respect and a bit of awe for stay-at-home parents. "Solidarity between mothers is very important," says O'Callaghan. "If we divide there'll be no strength. We need unity and support."

After the birth of their children, some mothers feel ambiguous about returning to the workplace. "After Cillian was born I wished I didn't have to go back to work," says Elaine Gleeson, whose son was born nearly three years ago. "But when I did go back it was fine."

Once back in the office, Gleeson, who works at O2 as a billing operations line manager, found that she didn't spend her working days pining for her son. "I suppose it's because of childcare we had organised -- his childminder Nicola comes to the house every day. So I knew Cillian was at home, having one-on-one attention. I never worried about him."

Sarah McCarthy, who works at a large software company, didn't have much time to consider whether she wanted to be at work or not. The Irish mother of a 12-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl, she had both her children in America.

In the US, paid maternity leave is not an automatic right and she took three months off for her first child and just six weeks for the second.

"When I went back so early with my daughter, it was really physically difficult," she says. "She was a newborn so it was very demanding to go back. But financially I didn't really have a choice."

While there are undoubtedly mothers who work purely out of financial necessity and would rather be at home with their children, for many women, work is necessary for another reason -- their own emotional and mental well-being.

"I never considered giving up my career for a few years," says Sandra O'Leary, who gave birth to her first son, Paul, in February, when she was working on a Master's degree, and is about to embark on a PhD.

"It wasn't a possibility. I know it would be bad for the child and for me -- I'd be like the mad woman in the attic. I knew it would be a better situation if the child had someone else for a few hours a day."

Elaine Gleeson feels the same way. "I think I'm a better mother because I work. I'm not the most patient person in world -- but that's okay at work. I have an outlet. I'd worry that if I wasn't at work I'd get bitter. I can see myself getting frustrated at home and getting obsessed with housework -- all my energies wouldn't just go into Cillian, like [my childminder] Nicola's do."

Work is also important to Sarah McCarthy. "It's part of your identity to have something outside of your family that you can accomplish on your own," she says.

"My ideal situation would be working part-time -- that feels like the best of both worlds. But financially that's not an option. I can see that if I was at home all day I don't think they'd get best of me."

Social pressure to give up work can increase when a woman has more children. Sandra O'Leary says that when she got pregnant again -- her baby is due in four months -- she found herself having to justify her decision to continue work.

"A lot of people seemed to assume that with two kids, of course I'd be staying at home," she says. "But I'm doing it for my son as well, it's not a selfish pursuit -- I'll earn money, I feel it allows me to be a better mother, I can support my husband so he can take time out, and in the long run we're all better off. I know all these things. But I had to really justify this to others."

She says that if she found herself justifying her decisions to herself, she would reconsider her decision. But that hasn't happened. She's happy with her choices.

But the negative stereotypes of working mothers can cause real pain. Elaine Gleeson heard about the report last week suggesting children of working mothers are unhealthy on the radio when she got into her car after a hard day's work. It felt, she says, like being "stabbed in the chest".

"I spend my weekend cooking his meals and freezing them to ensure that he has my home cooking," she says.

"I may not feed him every meal, but I make them. People are brilliant at having opinions about how people raise children. He's my son and I think he's doing all right. He's a very happy, contented, little boy. You wish sometimes that society would leave you alone and not judge."

Despite all the negativity, Elaine found that returning to work gave her more self-confidence. "I knew I was good at what I did and I wanted to go back and show that I was good at it," she says.

"You don't think you're a very good mammy when you start off, and it was hard going from being at my job and knowing what to do to being blind on a daily basis.

"I found I was always questioning myself and phoning my mam asking what to do. I didn't trust my own decisions. So when I came back to work I knew my decisions were okay and it gave me confidence."

Today's parents tend to divide up the labour much more democratically than a generation ago. But working mothers often end up doing a "double shift" -- a full day's professional work is followed by an evening of hard domestic labour.

"While things have improved an awful lot, mums still do the bulk of the housework," says Anne O'Connor. "It's not as uneven as it used to be but the research looking at working partners shows that the mother still does more of those chores."

Working mothers still tend to find themselves doing a lot of the less fun aspects of child-rearing, while the dads get to enjoy playtime. "If a kid is sick, the dads in my office have never raced home," says Sarah McCarthy.

"Whereas when my kids are sick, I have raced home and my husband might not. That's the role that mother also ends up taking on."

And Sandra O'Leary says she was taken aback to discover how strong her husband's idea of himself as a material provider was. "It took years of work to deconstruct this idea but it wasn't until shortly before Paul was born that my husband saw the value of my perspective. He witnessed friends who ended up in the male provider role and were not emotionally fulfilled.

'Previously he would have seen my insistence on equal partnership as a bit of pain in the arse -- he was compromising by agreeing to it. Now he says he realises the value of it. It's not emotionally fulfilling to just fill the coffers."

A lot has changed in a generation. "I couldn't work without my husband Eddie being supportive," says Elaine Gleeson. "I don't think I could do it all sanely unless I knew that when I got home Eddie could take Cillian for an hour while I do this and that. It's very, very much shared."

So what else would make things better for working mothers -- apart from a little more acknowledgment of what they do and a little less judgment? Well, better childcare would be a start.

An EU-funded study in 2004 showed that Ireland had the worst provision of public childcare in Europe, with demand far outstripping the supply, and that Irish parents were paying about 20pc of their income in childcare -- higher than anywhere else in Europe.

Standards in private childcare services can vary wildly. Unlike every other country in the EU, there is no tax relief on childcare costs.

But working mothers keep on going. "Work is a lovely outlet -- it's about you, and your career," says Elaine Gleeson. "I'm allowed to achieve something, to do something, want something, and not worry about how it affects Cillian, because it doesn't.

"How I behave in work is about my self-confidence and about me enjoying life. And when I go home it's all about him. I can't remember what my life was like before he was born. You love your child so much it hurts -- but you have to do something for yourself as well. A happy mammy makes a happy child."

- Anna Carey

Irish Independent