In the reactions to the Archbishop's Independence Day homily on working parents, the gist of the matter seems to lie in what Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina said at one point, namely, that "working mothers should not be made to feel guilty as long as their responsibilities towards the family were fulfilled".

It is felt that on the issue raised by the Archbishop "the best interests of children", as strongly advocated by the Convention on the Rights of the Child of the United Nations, should be the main criteria used to measure whether Maltese parents are fulfilling their responsibilities towards their children. Not gender equalty. That is another very important issue which deserves separate treatment.

I think that one of the best persons, today, to express in detail what constitutes the best interests of the child in this issue is exactly Mrs Cristina herself who, as she herself declared in The Times, felt, and so decided, that she should be a stay-at-home mother for 20 years. Why did she do so when she is such a top-class woman who could have easily run a top-class business venture but turned up as a model of a mother of substance? Events have vindicated this view as today, when all her four children are mature adults, she is the Minister for the Family.

The minister felt, I think rightly so, that the Archbishop, and I would add all of us who care about the quality of care to our children, should also focus on single mothers and missing fathers. But I feel these are, again, other issues, inter related, of course, but separate.

It seems the whole thing about working mothers really became a national issue when the civil authorities began what I feel should liberally be called a massive campaign to encourage, even induce (The Times used the word "entice") all women to return to work. I think we have to examine the implications behind this campaign which seems, also, to fall squarely within the parameters of the EU objectives of equal opportunities for both genders of workers.

Evidently more working women means also more workers paying more national insurance contributions, paying more income tax, and, obviously, generating more economic activity which, in turn, boosts and nourishes the economy. This also contributes a lot towards a reformed and robust pension system. But progress today, even at international level, is not measured only according to the gross domestic product but also according to human development. The two, inevitably, go together.

This is where the contributions of "experienced researchers" like Frances Camilleri Cassar can make a very valid contribution in this overall equation. But, really, who is doing the required research in Malta to allay anybody's fears, not only the Archbishop's, about the overall welfare of the Maltese family with children?

Statistics are repeatedly showing a gradual increase in the consumption of alcohol, drugs and tobacco among young people, especially teenage young women. This, with an exponential increase in the number of single women parents, hinted at, rightly so, and with great force, by Mrs Cristina.

We have to take into consideration also the gradual increase in marriage separation cases. Are these increases, of all sorts, also the direct results of absent working parents? Who can deny, or prove, this hypothesis? Which local social scientist is going to explain convincingly the problems presented by latch-key children who return from school to an empty home? Nanna and/or nannu, by themselves, are definitely not good enough.

I believe that only after rigorous research is done, a point made repeatedly by Sina Bugeja, do we start having serious and creditable answers to these questions and not by gratuitous assertions, I feel, of the patriarchal and religious type made by Dr Camilleri Cassar. Our social scientists should assidiously engage themselves fast to try to establish the causes, and implications, of these latest developments and the impact on good or faulty parenting especially, and I repeat especially, on the affective development of our children.

While it is true that Malta is today emulating, has to emulate, "an agenda forged in EU standards" as stated by Dr Camilleri Cassar, we should also, and always, compare the relative state of good health of our Maltese families with the total breakdown, within these "forged EU stanbards", of many many families in many EU states. And, for good measure, just let us constantly keep in mind what many EU states are trying to force on us in the issue on abortion!

I feel that Dr Camilleri Cassar, as a social scientist, should strive not to let herself be labelled as one obsessed with an image of an old-fashioned Church. When, indeed, was caution a vice and not a virtue? Indeed, the Catholic Church in Malta has been the pioneer of social welfare services for many many years before the creation of our welfare state, and still plays a very vital strategic role in the provision of these services. So I would not dismiss so lightly the words, repeated so often, of the Archbishop. After all he is one of Malta's "wise man" whose pronouncements normally also carry the weight of so many other "experienced" local pastors.

Mr Mifsud is a former director of the Department of Family Welfare.