I don't know how things were in your place of work on that fateful Budget Day last month, but in mine it was just so heartening!

The fellows in the top jobs all came around to congratulate women on the staff. "Splendid, isn't it, this individualisation?" they cried.

"Whatever else about him, at least McCreevy knows it is right and just to tax all workers on the same basis regardless of their marital or parental status. Hurrah!"

We all blushed and said thanks for your ongoing support.

Then we made some quick calls to friends who are at home at this point in their lives minding their kids. To a woman, they were absolutely jubilant. "Great!" they said. "And he's finally put some dosh into the childcare, though maybe not enough. But a lot of women will be able to get back to work now, which should ease up the old labour shortage."

"Yes indeed," we said, "and any minute now he's sure to announce a great, big, whopping increase in child benefit right across the board. Imagine that!"

We marvelled collectively.

Then the women at home sighed: "Mustn't forget we still have a long way to go. But hey, we're all in this together, right?" Then we all burst spontaneously into a verse of Solidarity Forever. The bosses just beamed, because they're really 100 per cent with us even though some days they get a bit confused.

In my dreams, as they say. What really happened was pretty scary. All that afternoon the women at home flooded the airwaves with outrage. The only people more venomous about individualisation were their husbands at work.

Piety ennobled vested interest. Socially divisive, they fumed; parity of treatment, crassness-of-it, what-sort-of-values. Not all of the men railed on in this vein, of course. Plenty of male colleagues with working spouses kept their heads down.

So did we; too tired, too cowed to bring everything down on our heads once more by Mentioning The War.

This war doesn't concern childless women or women who have a clear case for State financing because they are looking after the handicapped or elderly.

This is a conflict between mothers who have jobs and mothers who don't, and the Budget roused hostilities which have for the most part have lain quiescent since the mid-70s. Like all wars, this one is fuelled by prejudice, half-truths and fevered arguments that miss the point.

The prejudices are veiled by a polite pact which demands that each camp assure the other "it's all about respecting choices", but they are mutual.

The at-home mothers suspect their working counterparts are greedy self-advancers who stash their children in crΦches, there to be ignored and bullied. The working mothers suspect the woman-in-the-home is usually strolling indolently around the shopping mall, having driven there in her husband's company car.

Half-truths abound, but the big one is that "the mother in the home is doing society's most important work by rearing stable, secure citizens".

Well, some are and some aren't. There are many variables involved in this particular task, and none of the considerable research to date indicates that non-working mothers make a better fist of it than working mothers. (If the evidence was there, women would have their noses rubbed in it early and often.)

This is why the case for compensating or rewarding - in short, "paying", however inadequately - women for their work leads us to such daft measures as the £3,000 carers' allowance. How can the taxpayers possibly judge whether we're getting value for money?

The only people we can be certain who benefit by keeping mothers at home are fathers, who are thus freed to pursue their careers. Couples have every right to make this choice, but none to claim a subsidy for it.

In any case, now that families no longer need children to work the land, child-rearing as an economic activity is of dubious value. Pay has to be earned by producing the goods or services that generate social wealth.

These days, raising your own children is what the Americans call a self-actualising hobby. It contributes no more to the GNP than raising your own geraniums.

Pay is not the issue. Most mothers, working or otherwise, want to do the best by their children, and know perfectly well that love and commitment are beyond price.

What they want is support. The taxpayers do have a responsibility to provide that because children are, in fact, in great part the meaning of our existence, our biological imperative, social purpose and gift to the future.

If we want a stable and secure society for our children's future, we will have to make a serious investment in reducing the poverty which breeds social evils. A simple and effective start would have been a substantial child benefit for all families, double-income, single-income and no income. Mr McCreevy was so advised but he paid no attention.

But he and/or his successor might have to do it next time, if mothers could join forces and bury their differences. They are really very few.

There's been a lot of research in this area, too.

Survey after survey of mothers at home show that most would like to have paid employment outside the home - if they didn't have to go out to work when they had babies, if they could find jobs when their children were young that mesh with family life.

The surveys of working mothers mirror these responses. Most work the hours they do because the world of work is organised to suit a world that is fast fading, when wives stayed home permanently.

Consistently, most put their families first, seeking part-time work, job shares, bypassing promotion because domestic pressures take priority when children are young. Virtually all wish they could have far, far more maternity leave.

The working mothers put more emphasis on involving fathers, stressing the need for radical change in the workplace so both parents can share family obligations. My guess is that at-home mothers could buy into that.

What about a little direct action on the old feminist principle that the personal is political?

Once a day or so, every woman could make a point of turning to the man next to her, whether he's on the next pillow or at the next workstation, and asking what he's doing to integrate home life and working life for all.

Many men are well on board already, but there's still a lot of them out there, especially up at the top of the ladder, who just haven't got the message yet.

Let us launch the 21st century with a vow to make things uncomfortable for them.