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Today I picked up my one-year-old from daycare and he cried because he didn't want to leave. Nothing unusual there. It's a pretty regular occurrence. What was different this time was that the daycare provider told me he's started calling her 'Mama'.

Apparently that's normal - all the kids do it.

Still, it doesn't do much for my already quite well ingrained sense of guilt.

It used to be that Dads (and Mums - I'll use the British spelling) justified their time spent away from the kids as being for the good of family. I haven't heard that particular line of logic in a while. Now it's plainly for the good of the parent which, in turn is good for the child.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it's just more socially acceptable to admit it's for your own self-fulfilment. Maybe it's a sign of the times economically.

I'm the first to admit I work for my own self-gratification. I can't imagine it being any other way. I tell myself I'd be a worse mother if I didn't. That my self-esteem would plummet. And of course there's the small question of the mortgage. And my child is more important to me than life itself (cliched though it may be) - I'd abandon the most important meeting of my life in a nano-second if he needed me.

But it doesn't make me feel any less guilty. Or make me wonder whether my relationship with my child will eventually suffer. Or whether I'm deluding myself that this is the right thing to do.

So, to me, that's the ultimate modern day dilemma. If you work you feel guilty. If you don't you feel guilty.

So much for the emancipation of women.