Last week, Kate Holmquistwrote that Eddie Hobbs was right ; having babies does harm women's careers. Readers responded with a flurry of e-mails reflecting a range of passionately held opinions on the subject of motherhood and the workplace. Here are some of their views

JH is an Irish father who left behind a lucrative career in the US to settle down in rural Ireland and rear a family

"My wife gave up work to take care of our three children. It was a case of examining our priorities in relation to what kind of life we wanted. Even though she had a good salary, we felt that spending two hours a day commuting and having someone else take care of our kids was not in line with what we wanted. In effect, we would be outsourcing taking care of our children.

"I did well financially in the States, which has enabled me to settle for an income that is less than it could have been had I stayed in the rat race. I miss the buzz of business in the city, but on the plus side I have a five-minute commute to work and the kids are five minutes from school.

"The hard part is for my wife to accept the changes to her life, and the accompanying loss of identity and public status. I have to support my wife and share the childcare to keep her head straight. I think that both parents have to make a sacrifice for it to work properly. I don't think the choice comes down to whether it's fair or not. I think it's nature and it's tough, but for us it was the right thing to do. I think that if we hadn't made this decision to focus on our children and our relationship, we'd be divorced now. It seems that it is a question of making choices and being happy with the results, knowing you can't have it all."

SB married at 20, didn't make it to college even though she did well in school, and lives in a Dublin suburb

"As a separated mother of two, I know in my heart I am a world away from what I could be doing now if I had decided not to have children. My career has suffered, but the alternative is that motherhood would suffer. I changed jobs and took a lesser salary because, to get the children to school, I needed a 9am start rather than an 8am start. I've survived at times by working two jobs because my ex-husband has a new family and gives me no financial support.

"If anyone says a woman's career doesn't suffer, they are very much mistaken. For example, if you're expected to travel for work, then having children goes against you. Having children also keeps you from pursuing studies during evenings and weekends. I know that if I was qualified, I'd make at least €20,000 more. I'm not saying that men don't have these difficulties, but I think women are much more aware.

"I have a fantastic male childminder, a father who decided that because his wife was the higher earner, he would stay at home for his own kids and earn a living by looking after other people's kids after school, and during mid-term breaks and holidays. But this is unusual - the whole expectation is that a woman's career will work around a man's. It's unacceptable, but you have to accept it because it's true.

"What would help me in practical terms? Tax relief on childcare. For years I've struggled to earn money in order to pay tax and to pay for childcare from my after-tax income (25 per cent of which goes on childcare).

"Housing is another problem. For years I was trying to buy a house with the help of the council through the shared-ownership scheme. The council asked me why I just didn't go on the list [for social housing], but I wanted to be a home-owner and to rear my children in a safe area. The expectation is that as a single mother you'll give up work and live off social welfare, but I was determined to look after myself and my children - and, because of that, I suffered financially. I have a mortgage now after fighting to get on the shared-ownership scheme, and I'm just managing.

"If this was an issue of French or Chinese being treated differently from Irish-born people, rather than parents versus childless people, or single parents versus married parents, they'd call it racism and it would be up in the courts. Instead, everyone says that's just the way it is."

GN recently returned to work in financial services in Dublin after having her first child

"I'm knackered, pacing the corridors between 2am and 5am, then up at 6.30am to get ready for work and bring my baby to the creche. I can't afford to give up work because we can't survive on one salary (I earn more than my husband). My company tries to be supportive; it offered me a four-day week, but there would have been a significant drop in salary at the same time as having to pay creche fees of €1,000 per month. I want more children, but I can't afford to pay €2,000 or €3,000 per month.

"I think the answer is tax relief on childcare costs, plus work-based, government-subsidised creches. You could see your child during the day and I think companies would find female talent staying rather than leaving so that companies have to train up a whole new group of single women. The women I know who have left work haven't been happy to leave, and the company has been sorry to lose them, but after trying to cope, these women had no choice.

"I leave my baby at creche at 7.30am, start work at 8am, and leave at 5pm to collect my baby by 5.30pm, which means I can't do work-related activities in the evenings. That's why I see so few female managing directors in financial services." CD, a mother of three, runs her own PR business from home in Dublin

"This is an important subject and the more people use their voices the better - yet women tend to hold back. More and more women are working from home. I get the sense that a lot more women are doing it for themselves, and their primary reason is control and freedom.

"People at the top think you have to be sitting at a desk from nine to five, but they don't realise that women may be more creative if they have the freedom to work flexible hours. Women are great organisers, and after having children they become even more efficient, getting as much done in a morning as others might do in a day in an office. I get some of my best ideas while cooking the children's tea. I'm not saying everyone should work that way - what works for one might not work as well for another. And it can be really hectic if a child gets sick, but I have great support from my mother and sister. I also manage a cleaner once a week, otherwise I'd have to stay up all night once a week!"

EC, civil servant and single mother of one

"Notwithstanding the difficulties in managing child-rearing and career, I find that my focus is more on my son than my job - he's much more interesting and rewarding! My husband left when our son was two (he's now almost 10), and I couldn't manage my career as a ward sister while being mother and father to a toddler. My ex's career has not suffered at all. I changed jobs, to the Civil Service, which is a very family-focused employer. I'd like to go to college at night, but I must wait until my son is a little older - hopefully, I'll achieve greatness then!

"I'd rather be messing up my career with a child than not have the child - he's the best thing I've ever done. We're the lucky ones. I'm skint, alone, exhausted, in a job that could just as easily be done by a monkey, but I made a boy and he rocks!"

Steven Byrne, father of two, lives in Madrid where childcare is "easier, cheaper and more flexible"

"This is a global issue. Although it may be un-PC to say so, we're not all equal - productivity is productivity, and no amount of egalitarian sentiment changes that. Our competitiveness as an economic unit in the global scheme of things won't be treated more sympathetically by our trading partners as a result of making allowances for working mothers.

"Society isn't engineered to tease women with the concept of equality and then torment them with the harsh reality of life juggling career and kids. This is simply a period in human history when the female role is clashing with structures and concepts that belong to an earlier time. The local Irish issue is that if we really want our kids brought up by professional carers and really want our womenfolk to be truly productive and reach their true potential in the workforce, then we have to adopt the system to enable this to happen. This has been known and understood for a decade without the official action required being put into action. The question has to be: why hasn't any government over the years seen fit to take the necessary measures?

"Does discussion of this issue preclude the possibility of considering the plight of those men who know that once they become fathers they lose that beautiful power to choose to leave their frustrating job and move freely to other places and possible opportunities? Those of us who have to consider our families before taking a stand with the boss know that careers for men with children often move in a less stellar fashion than for those who are able to dedicate more of their lives and indeed their social lives to the job."

MC is an Irish hospital consultant and mother, currently working in Boston while on temporary leave

"The purpose of the career break was to facilitate my husband (also a doctor) in his career while keeping the family together. I may well have to make a choice in the coming months to keep us all together or return to my job in Dublin while my husband seeks employment in the UK (there being no movement on consultant contract negotiations, and therefore no jobs in Ireland for him to apply for).

"The whole issue of not 'having it all' is a big bugbear of mine. It's the truth! This is why, with numerous degrees, postgraduate qualifications and 36 letters after my name, I am thinking of resigning my job in Ireland. I have two (soon to be three) daughters, and I hope they don't believe the 'you can have it all' bulls**t that I fell for."

JH is married, doesn't yet have children and is living in Australia

"Your underlying assumption is that women with partners, once they become mothers, will be shouldering more than half the responsibility for children and house. This may often be the case, but why is it an unquestioned assumption? You urge women not to accept a working world that is structured to stunt mothers, not to assume that the system will beat them down.

"I cannot understand why women do not question and reject the assumption to which I refer, and the fact that they don't is as much part of the problem as unflexible working hours.

"I see it often among the women I work with. When a childminder is on holidays or when the kids have to be collected early, it is them and not their partners who unquestioningly rearrange their timetable in some way to accomodate it. For nearly every woman who drops out of her career because of children, there is a man whose career is unaffected. Why should this be so? My partner and I both plan to work part-time when we have children."

MF, who lives in Dublin, left a full-time career when she had children, then returned to work part-time in her attempt to balance work and motherhood

"A friend of mine advised that my part-time job would end up being a full-time job. She, at the time, left the office at 4pm most days even though her hours of work were supposed to end at 2pm. In my 'part-time' job, I deal with more administrative work than many people in 'full-time' jobs.

"Another friend of mine recently returned to work part-time and is fighting off extra work in order to keep her part-time job. I have also heard of women resigning from part-time jobs when the amount of work they were expected to do turned their work, in reality, into full-time jobs. I am amazed this problem doesn't seem to be highlighted in the media."

SO has a high-level job in a local authority. She is single, and isn't a parent, but has an interest in women's issues

"There are 13 executives in the local authority where I work, and two are women. We have flexitime and term-time working, which is inevitably taken up by women, and we have an on-site creche, which does have a waiting list. Where I work, things are easier for women, yet still most of our executives are men. It's always the women who take the day off when a child is sick. Men are working their way up through the system, while women are represented more in the lower grades. I don't know why this is, considering that conditions here are relatively good.

"It's difficult for women to speak up, because there's an automatic backlash. You get stigmatised as a prude or for having no sense of humour."