TWO policewoman who looked after each other’s children on the days the other worked, have been told that their scheme is illegal because neither is a registered childminder.

It counts as “reward” apparently and Ofsted doesn’t like it. So now the children are in nursery and the mothers are divvying up a huge chunk of their salaries for arrangements which are not as happy nor as flexible.

Yes, of course we have to have regulated childminders and all the paperwork and inspection that entails.

But when mothers take turns to look after each other’s child? The reciprocal nature of the arrangement is surely its very own regulation.

My neighbour and I regularly used to throw our children over the fence, so that I had time to work and she had peace to do her complicated needlework without her toddler eating the pins. Our children had company – the extra noise well worth the entertainment value – and all was well.

It was an arrangement I continued with other parents for years. Two days a week I would drop my boys off at playgroup in the morning and collect them after tea from a friend’s house. Two days a week I had her two boys as well. As a freelance, it was the only way I could keep a toehold in the world of work.

Only when I had the luxury of a well-paid lecturing job and all Smaller Son’s friends had started school, did I need, or could afford to pay for a proper childminder.

It’s what mothers have done since time began – especially mothers who don’t have the luxury of large extended families around them.

But if you do it for more than two hours a week or 14 days a year, then Ofsted will be banging on your door.

Frankly, given the state of many of our schools, you’d think Ofsted would have more important things to worry about.

It gets worse. Rules for childcare apparently don’t apply between the hours of 6pm and 2am when you don’t have to be registered, grown up, or even know one end of a baby from another. So if you get any old teenager to look after your children in your home, it might not be sensible, but it’s perfectly legal. That’s fine. Whereas another mother in daytime is not.

Maybe the two police officers should just do night shifts. It would be a lot less bother.

And the rest of us will carry on banging our heads against the wall, wondering – yet again – what happened to common sense.

MEANWHILE, as if working mothers didn’t have enough to worry about, researchers at the Institute of Child Health claim that children of stay-at-home mums have healthier lifestyles than those who go out to work.

Which brought a swift response from Michele de Vaal in East Witton.

“The reason I and many thousands of other mums worked was to earn enough money to make sure my children were fed and clothed well, and so that I could afford the fees and sports kit and clothing they needed to join the rugby/cricket club, have swimming lessons and take part in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme, etc.

“However, I have no doubt that when they were old enough to let themselves in after school, that the biscuit tin was raided and they were glued to the TV until five minutes before I returned home!”

As a child of a working mother, I was certainly one of the biscuit tin raiders, before I started work on making the family supper. On the other hand, friends whose mothers stayed at home were force-fed home-made cakes as soon as they came through the door and then sat there with their feet up while their mums bustled round making tea.

But it all proves what I’ve always thought: a mother’s place is in the wrong – whether she works or not.

WHEN Senior Son was about three years old, he taught me an important lesson. He toddled out of playschool with a squashed and wobbly construction made from toilet rolls and tin foil that was, he said, a space station.

I’d read all the books about boosting your baby’s self-esteem, so of course I said brightly “That’s brilliant!”

“No it’s not,” he said scornfully.

“It’s rubbish,” and chucked it in the bin.

He was right. I was wrong.

Too much praise, say American scientists and British educationalists in the same week, spoils our children. It ends up devaluing their achievements and is a discouragement not a spur.

Too much praise, too many stickers and A*s, not enough red ink, corrections and criticism are also lousy preparation for the real world which can come as a bit of a shock to our cotton wool kids.

Our three-year-olds in the cut and thrust jungle of playgroup have already sussed that one out. It’s time we listened to them.

The wobbly space station incident could also explain why ever since, my son has considered my judgement to be absolutely hopeless.

MANY years ago I found a new Marks & Spencer nightie, a forgotten Christmas present, at the back of a drawer. It was five years old, but I still got my money back. That’s what Marks & Spencer was like.

Not long afterwards – maybe hacked off about that nightie – they changed their refunds time limit to 90 days. Now they’re changing it again, down to 35.

Fair enough, I suppose. That’s about the same as every other store on the high street.

But the whole point of Marks & Spencer was that it wasn’t like all the other stores.

It is now. And once they’ve lost that special place in our national consciousness, all the advertising campaigns in the world won’t get it back.

Devoted daddies

FORMER Monty Python star Terry Jones, left, has become a father with his 26-year-old girlfriend. He is 67 – the age my father was when he died.

Terry Jones’s chances of seeing his daughter through to adulthood are bound to be less likely than if he were 30 years younger, but I cannot get upset at the thought of older fathers.

Plenty of lads in their teens and twenties father babies without a thought in the world and then have nothing to do with them.

So surely an old dad who is loving and devoted for a few years at least, is better than a young toerag who is never there at all?

No sell-by date on guilt

THE US wants to extradite film director Roman Polanski to sentence him for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl, to which he pleaded guilty 31 years ago.

After all this time, an old man with a distinguished career, should he face a sentencing court? Of course he should. He said he was guilty back then.

Thirty-one years dodging justice does not suddenly make a man innocent.

Gas bills

IPAY our gas bill in regular amounts by direct debit every month. Clearly I’m paying too much – even allowing for summer/winter variations. The latest statement says that they owe me £330, “which we will carry forward towards your future bills”.

If I had owed them £330 do you think they would have been happy to carry the debt forward?

No. Neither do I.