Next time you go for that all-important job interview – the one that you have been gearing up for since you left that last dead-end job – and the interviewer, a male, asks you if you intend to have a baby any time soon don’t blame his chauvinistic tendencies…blame Natasha Kaplinsky. Ms Kaplinsky has set women’s opportunities in the workplace back twenty years through being just a tad reckless about her reproductive habits.

Here’s the facts: just two weeks after returning from a second bout of maternity leave in two years, Natasha Kaplinsky has quit her job as the £1 million-a-year anchorwoman for Five News. The 38-year-old became the highest-paid newsreader on British TV when she signed the deal in late 2007, but since then has spent only a paltry 252 hours on screen – that’s the equivalent of just over five weeks’ work for those on a 48-hour-week. Now she has quit the channel and in so doing has dealt a hammer blow to working women everywhere.

For while Kaplinsky (or Spangles, as some readers may recall I dubbed her) may get away with it, ordinary working women will suffer the fall-out. Speak to any employer, large or small, and there’s an unspoken fear that appointing high-flying females brings with it an unwelcome level of risk. And who could blame them? With the recession hitting the bottom line hard, what boss in his (or her) right mind will not think twice about employing or promoting a woman of child-bearing age if they fear she might be planning to embark on serial motherhood?

Harsh? Yes. Against every equality and employment law in the book? Absolutely. But looking at a woman like Kaplinsky, can you really blame an employer if they nurture that prejudice? I know I can’t. It’s not only right but essential women get proper maternity leave and their careers are not compromised as a result. But I believe women also have a responsibility not to abuse that right; a duty, after the long struggle for equality in the workplace, not to sully the ground for other working mothers who will follow in their wake.

Popularity: 12% [?]

If you will admit it you would not be the only parent to have broken into junior’s money box at some stage when you have needed a bit of extra change. I’ve done it for sure but my kids have definitely profited more than they have lost over the years…

A fifth of parents admit they have dipped into their child’s savings account to make ends meet, a survey showed today. Around 22 per cent of parents said they had been forced to raid their child’s savings, with 44 per cent borrowing between £200 and £500, according to savings provider Engage Mutual Assurance. Four out of 10 parents said they were forced to use their child’s savings to pay bills, while 20 per cent faced unexpected car repairs.

Around 14 per cent used the money to pay for a family holiday, 12 per cent needed it to cover the cost of house repairs and 8 per cent put the money towards the cost of Christmas. Two-thirds of parents said they only borrowed money from their children when there was no alternative, and 13 per cent said they did not know where else they could get the money from quickly. Eight out of 10 parents who borrowed money said they saw it as a loan and would pay it back when they could.

But 30 per cent of parents admitted they felt guilty about borrowing money from their children and 27 per cent said they felt sad that their financial situation had become so dire. But look at it this way – you enable your kids to save, you provide them with the funds to do so – so what is the problem with taking back some of that which you gave them…?

Popularity: 26% [?]

As if workplace policies dictating maternity pay and leave are not off-putting enough to certain employers Harriet Harman now has a plan that will see businesses footing a bill costing possibly billions should it actually come to fruition. Her plan is that all workers will be entitled to claim paid leave to care for sick relatives under plans commissioned by Women’s Minister Harriet Harman. All employees would also win the right to request flexible working hours to look after children and elderly parents.

The proposals are contained in a report demanded by Miss Harman into the needs of the so-called ‘sandwich generation’  -  working women who have to care for both young children and ageing relatives. They are expected to be included in a green paper published by Miss Harman next year. The proposals, revealed by Miss Harman at a conference yesterday, are likely to prove popular with working women. But they will be dismissed by business leaders as likely to cost billions to firms who are struggling to stay afloat during the recession.

The conference for the centre-left Institute for Public Policy Research yesterday heard that 3 per cent of women  -  more than 550,000 in total  -  and 2 per cent of men are forced to look after children and grandparents, most of them while holding down a job. Women in their 40s are most hard hit with one in 12 forced to perform ‘sandwich’ care.

Popularity: 33% [?]