WHEN I was a child my brother, sister and I would come home from school to the smell of baking. My mum would be in the kitchen, preparing tea for the family. The house was warm, inviting and orderly.

My parents struggled at times, but were able to manage the household on Dad’s wage alone.

It was when I was about 14 that my mum returned to work. What a contrast - our homecoming was not the same welcoming affair. The house felt cold and there was no smell of the meal to come, to tantalise your taste buds.

There was also nobody there to sort out sibling arguments, resulting a lot of bickering over what was on TV.

For me as a child, I would far rather have had my mum at home than out at work. Back then, in the 1960s and 1970s, every family I knew had a stay-at-home mum.

When I became a mother in the mid-1990s, things were very different. After my maternity leave ended, we couldn’t afford for me or for my husband - men are equally capable full-time parents - to give up work. For many years our lives were chaotic and our home disorganised, as we juggled work with bringing up the children.

Most of our friends had the same scenario. We knew few families who were able to exist on one salary. The situation has not changed since then. If anything it has got worse.

The days of the stay-at-home mum could be coming to an end. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the number of people not in work and looking after family has nearly halved in three decades to just 1.6m

In 1993 home-makers made up 35 per cent of the 'economically inactive' population - but now the level is just 19 per cent.

It’s a great shame. Whether Mum or Dad, children benefit from having one full-time parent at home. It offers more stability and comfort, It also allows parents to become more involved in their children’s day-to-day lives as they grow.

When my daughters were at primary school they were among countess children who found themselves shunted between breakfast clubs and after-school clubs. Some kids arrived at school at 7am and were not collected until 6pm. When we got ours home they were exhausted and crotchety, as were we.

When I was allowed to work part-time, it was life-changing. The days when I didn’t work were bliss; not that I sat around drinking tea and watching Loose Women - as any parent knows, stay-at-home is like being a full-time housekeeper - shopping, cooking, washing, and the rest. Even at home, the actual ‘childcare’ is minimal.

MPs have urged the government to step in with more support, insisting many parents would prefer to focus on caring for young children than return to work.

We’ve heard it all before. Until stay-at-home parents, or those who want to work less, are given more financial help, both parents will be forced to return to work. With the rising cost of living, many families can ill afford to live on two wages, let alone one.

The farcical thing is, many parents who remain in work don’t actually gain financially. The UK has some of the highest childcare costs in Europe. Parents, like me, return to work because they don’t want to give up their career, for fear of never getting it back. This too should be addressed, with structured career breaks and a guarantee of being able to return.

This is not really about parents, but children. Being able to collect them from school, take them home and make them tea. It’s about being there for them when they need us most. Let’s put them first for a change.