A YEAR ago, Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt was telling us that mothers who refused to go out to work were a "real problem".

Now we discover that the real problem is that actually, there aren't enough kids to go round.

This week, Mrs Bossyboots told Britain's employers trade union, the CBI, that it virtually amounts to our female duty to have more children, because it is "crucial for the economic and social success of the country".

At last, they're starting to get it.

They're starting to realise that far from being a noisy, expensive nuisance, our kids are more valuable to this country than all the gold in the Bank of England. They are our stocks and shares. They are the future.

Without children there will be no workers. No one to produce the goods. No one to buy the goods. No one to buy the shares when you want to make a quick buck by selling them on.

Without children, the people who complain about them now will have no doctors and no nurses, and no care home workers to wipe the dribble off their chin.

Without kids, there will be no one to earn the dosh to pay for the pensions that people who are retiring now, expect to claim.

Without enough kids, frankly, this country will be even further up that well-known creek without the proverbial. We'll grind to a halt.

I'm fortunate to work for an employer who has never made me feel bad about putting my kids first. But I've met plenty of women - and men - who have.

I've met women who have denied they even were mothers, because of the damage it would do to their job prospects. I've met men who have been barracked in front of their colleagues because they asked for time off to help care for a sick child.

Well, the boot's on the other foot, now, isn't it? So Patricia Hewitt and her CBI chums had better get with it, and quick.

Kids are a fact of life. They are not some irritating conspiracy to empty the pockets of the childfree, to pay for their education and their health care.

And, instead of picking on those people who do have them, instead of making snide remarks when parents have to dash off to pick up their children, or watch the school sports day, employers, and those who choose not to have children, should be grateful to those who do.

They should look ahead to the day when they won't be able to feed themselves, get dressed or get around without any help.

And then they will be damned grateful that there's someone young and cheerful to assist them... our grown-up, tax-paying, wealth-producing kids.