Forget Helen Fraser's 'nappy wall', this is what women should look for in a mate There is never going to be an end to this work/life balance problem we keep having to hear about, because you cannot balance modern work with modern life; you can only logroll until you fall off. I have never found it helpful when high-profile women in good public-sector jobs (who earn enough money to pay someone else to manage their walls of nappies) continue to back policies that insist that women must be allowed to take a year's maternity leave, and have the job they are not doing kept open for them. A sensible woman, Helen Fraser, made a speech this week on becoming chief executive of the Girls" Day School Trust (which was the Girls" Public Day School Trust when my north Oxford friend went to Sydenham High). Lots of women won't like her tone much. Dipping a toe into the turbulent waters that still swirl around the employment of women (as though it was a 21st-century phenomenon), Mrs Fraser mused on the question of whether the "glass ceiling" problem was actually a "nappy wall" problem. Answer: it's the same problem. She mused again on whether what really mattered for women was a partner "who shares the load at home" or one who cares about whether your career is as successful as their own. And should women be taught how to choose a mate? Yes, they should; and what they should choose above all is a man who likes women. Vast numbers of men don't like women very much, not with the same broad, easy liking they have for their men friends. Some men are only perfectly at ease with other men; companionable coves who don't sneak, don't whine, and all pull together when someone's saying: "On a count of three: one, two... heave." Every time I do that with a woman, she waits for the fourth beat. "It's not just about finding a man who does the Hoovering and makes the dinner," said Mrs Fraser. No - it's about finding a man who slips easily between the roles of prep-chef and head chef depending on how much work he and/or she has to do this evening - if you'll forgive an illustration so heteronormative. (I am allowed to be sexist at my age, anyway. I fought for your freedoms, little sister.) I never mind a man who is always insistent on being head carver, even when he guards the sharpware with fussy jealousy (Lord, how I hate carving, myself) but I seriously object to a man who affects to take overall charge of the domestic offices in a supervisory capacity only. I once had a neighbour - a good friend, though I don't see him now - who surreptitiously ran an index finger over my kitchen shelf and looked at it to see how much dust it had picked up. Both his wife and I yelped and howled at him, while my husband fell about laughing. "Just seeing whether having a coal-fired Rayburn makes a difference...?" he said, with a look of injured innocence. I threw a dishcloth at him. Should have been the kettle. The best choice a working woman can make is a man who loves children. It is the best cradle-gift a baby can have. For some reason, mother-love is accepted as the naturally inevitable endgame to pregnancy and birth. Father-love is not the same category of thing, is it? The word itself looks so odd that my fingers hover over the typed word while I wonder if it will look more comfortable if I take out the hyphen (no) or put it in quote marks (no). Grandfather-love is an easier concept. The nicest filthy-rich businessman I ever met had his two-month-old grandson in a Moses basket under his office desk. I was enchanted (and so were both of his PAs). His daughter was at home with a post-natal problem that was not life-threatening but demanded she lie flat for six months. His son-in-law was a barrister in mid-case; his own wife was nursing their daughter and caring for a three-year-old. "So I get to do the day shifts," he told me, beaming. It's fantastic. Never been so popular. Tell you what - take a baby into an Italian restaurant at lunchtime and you don't have a worry in the world.