'Those who argue that traditional mothers are the be-all and end-all are making fathers seem expendable'

An impending 30th birthday can really sharpen your focus. Mine is blinking up ahead and, while such mature pursuits as house-buying, gardening and having kids still seem some way off, I do sense that they are creeping closer. Which can really set the mind spiralling.

When it comes to motherhood, for instance, even just considering it involves weighing up the necessary sacrifices. And not only those that naturally accompany giving birth to a tiny creature, entirely dependent on its parents. You also have to consider those imposed by social opinion.

You have to decide, for instance, whether you are ready to put your days of doing anything remotely dangerous behind you, or are prepared to face the alternative - the accusation of being a bad mother. As far as I can recall, there has rarely been a major outcry against a father taking on a dangerous job or challenge, but when a mother embarks on anything involving acknowledged risks - war reporting, police work, mountaineering - the criticisms start.

Back in 1995, for instance, when the climber Alison Hargreaves decided to scale K2, dying in the attempt, some of the responses were intensely critical. Commentators contended that, as the mother of two young children, even to consider such a climb had been irresponsible.

In recent weeks, such arguments have em erged again, following the capture by Iran of Leading Seaman Faye Turney and 14 of her fellow Royal Navy sailors. I'm hoping that, by the time you read this, all 15 will have been released and brought home, and - if they choose - will have had the chance to tell their stories.

After all, since they were captured, we've learned little about them, beyond the fact that Turney is a mother. From the moment the hostage story broke, Turney's parental status was placed front and centre and, with startling speed, writers began questioning why a young mother was serving in Iraqi waters in the first place. For instance, the Daily Mirror columnist, Paul Routledge, wrote: "Britain cannot be so short of military personnel that such women [young mothers] should be permitted - nay encouraged - to go gadding around the world's most dangerous and volatile waterway."

Reading much of this commentary, I was struck at first by how critical it was of Turney - an impression which persists. As I read on though, what quickly became even more startling was just how contemptuous these arguments were of fathers.

There seems to me no intrinsic problem with newspapers having mentioned Turney's par ental status in their reports - most parents, I'm sure, consider this a defining part of their identity. The fact that the parental status of male captives is so rarely mentioned in these situations, though, creates the implicit suggestion that fathers matter less than mothers. Some commentators spelled this out. Jill Parkin, for instance, suggested in the Daily Mail that it "may be politically incorrect to say so, but for young children, the loss of a mother is likely to be worse than the loss of a father". And, echoing her in the Sunday Mirror, Carole Malone wrote: "I'm sorry if this is unpalatable or un-PC, but the loss of a mother is a damn sight harder for a child than the loss of a father."

It surprises me that anyone feels comfortable making such a generalisation. Having lost my own father when I was two, I'm not sure whether I'm in the best position to judge - or the worst - but it does seem odd to me that anyone can be quite so certain of what seems, at best, a highly contentious argument.

And, also, an ironic one. Over the past few years, it's become popular for British commentators to contend that men are in crisis, that they have been stripped of their status, and that this is a result of progressive, feminist women and their demands for equality at work, and at home.

Reading the arguments that arose last week though, it seems obvious that the opposite is true. The progressive women I know who are keen to have kids are also keen to share the parenting equally with their partners (male or female). A major part of male identity is - and always should be - their potential role as a father, and the people who are actually undermining this most seriously are those who cling to an old-fashioned notion of the family and society. In constantly arguing for the unassailable importance of mothers, asserting that mothers - rather than parents in general - are by far the best people to look after young children, they very effectively and repeatedly sideline fathers.

My own notion is that mothers are important, fathers are important, and that children can be well brought up in a variety of family structures - single, gay or mother and father - provided that those looking after them are engaged with their upbringing.

Those who argue that a traditional mother is the be-all and end-all are, ironically, doing what feminists are so often accused of. They are making fathers seem expendable.

Kira Cochrane is the Guardian women's editor

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