Being a mum to three boys in our current times, is some times a confusing place to be.

I’m always surprised by just how many families of the three boy variety there are. I have assumed, that after two boys, you’re willing to give it one more shot to try for a girl but on the wonderful gift of the third boy, it takes a brave parent to consider four children regardless of their gender.

Someone once told me that after two children of the same sex, the odds of flipping gender fall to something like 20 per cent. I don’t know whether this is true but for a whole host of reasons, I was unable to persuade my husband that being parents to potentially four boys was a situation we could handle and still live to tell the tale.

And so, like many other families, I live in a house fuelled by testosterone and vast quantities of carbohydrate.

Boys get labelled from an early age and there is no phrase I detest more than “boys will be boys”. A bigger cop-out would be hard to find.

Yes, boys are physical, need lots of exercise and love to play fight. So do lots of girls I know.

Boys make a mess just as much as I remember doing as a child.

Children can’t be labelled.

When we had our youngest child, there were a significant amount of well-meaning people who almost seemed to take pity on us.

It bizarrely seems more of an achievement for parents to have produced offspring of both sexes and there were definitely times we were made to feel like we had in some way failed in out duty to have a daughter.

Our boys love cooking, playing on games consoles, fighting, cuddling, styling each other’s hair, watching me put make-up on and playing football and, although I may be proved wrong, I’m not worried that they’ll stop talking to us the minute they become teenagers.

Since the early 1960s there has been a dramatic uprising for female rights and gender equality, and for this I am so grateful. Had I been born in the 40s or 50s and not born into a family of wealth and privileged education, I’d wager that my life would have been somewhat different.

There are plenty of noteable women who have bettered themselves against the socio-economic odds; Margaret Thatcher, daughter of a grocer, and my own mother, daughter of a bus driver who completed a degree in politics as a mature student and became a gifted teacher at the age of 45.

The chances are it would have been much harder to be a working mum with the degree of life balance I feel lucky to have now.

Whilst this is great for us women, I’ve often thought that there is no one championing the rights of the men who have had to quietly deal with the changing face of family life.

Gone are the days (thankfully) when the majority of working men would leave the house at 8am and return to a hot dinner, an organised house,well-fed, disciplined children and a wardrobe of ironed shirts.

It’s easy to think that us women have it tough, juggling families and careers but maybe we just shout louder about it?

Perhaps it’s time for the men to take back their voices and remind us that the 21st century metrosexual male is not exactly getting an easy ride either.

My middle son recently asked me how he will know what sort of girl to marry when he gets older.

After choking on my tea and resisting the urge to tell him that he needn’t worry because all potential candidates will be thoroughly vetted by me anyway, I composed myself and gave him some advice which I hope he will remember: “Son, that’s a tough one. There are two essential qualities in any woman willing to take you on.

“Firstly, the ability to support themselves financially and secondly and most importantly, she must laugh as much as you do at the sound of flatulence.”

Needless to say, he will doubtless remember the second.