"No other troubles?" was my mother's sarcastic response whenever I complained about something that she regarded as trivial. So perhaps the paternity leave debate that seems to be preoccupying the British media and public at the moment should be seen as a positive sign, proof that thorny issues like Northern Ireland and integration with Europe are really under control.
The debate, which has aroused international interest, arises out of the dilemma faced by the Prime Minister and progenitor of New Labour, Tony Blair, whose wife Cherie is expecting their fourth child at the end of May. Under his own government's parental leave regulations, introduced last December in response to a European Union directive, Mr Blair is entitled to an unpaid break of up to thirteen weeks to share the joys and burdens of parenthood with his partner.
Cherie, a successful and wealthy QC who specialises in the kind of social engineering litigation that gives the law a bad name, is pressuring her husband to set a good example by taking at least some of his leave entitlement. Tony, who recently confessed that he is finding life as Britain's Prime Minister tougher than he had expected, is not so sure. He obviously feels that his country would be severely diminished if he were to hand over the levers of power to his deputy for any length of time.
Of course, Mr Blair could simply follow the precedent Cherie set after the birth of their last child, when she took only two days leave before returning to her career. But his wife and her legion of feminist supporters are demanding a lot more than this from Tony. They want him to make a major symbolic statement to the nation, which would encourage more men to experience what Cherie has called the "sometimes intolerable burden" that career women face in balancing the obligations of home and work.
In fact, in the Blairs' case, the "sometimes intolerable burden" is shared by a full-time nanny and other helpers. One possible solution might be for Tony to employ, at his own expense, a male nanny -- a "manny" -- to stand in for him while he continues with his day job of running those parts of the British state that have not yet been handed over to the European Union or devolved to regional assemblies.
Tony Blair has hitched his star to something that he calls the "third way". No one is quite sure what this really means; and indeed, it is a most unfortunate phrase given its use by fascist theoreticians in the 1920s and 1930s to designate their nasty alternative to both liberal democracy and Marxism. In Tony's hands the "third way" seems rather more mushy, the sort of thing that might be thrown up by a ménage à trois between the union movement, the Business Council and the victim-making industry.
But whatever the third way of running a nation might actually involve, Tony has said that he hopes to discover a third way of handling his parental leave problem with Cherie. If only he had studied anthropology at university, the solution would have been obvious. He should follow the lead of men in many indigenous cultures, and carry out the couvade for the arrival of his new child.
The couvade is a ritual in which a man imitates many aspects of childbirth while his wife is in labour. In the full blown version, the father goes into seclusion and observes the same food and other taboos that have been placed on his partner. But most crucially, he displays all the symptoms of the pain that his wife is experiencing, and after the child has been born the father is looked after as though he too had given birth. In some cultures he may even be given more care than the mother herself receives.
The couvade is -- or was -- found amongst Amazonian Indians and the indigenous tribes of California, as well as in parts of Asia and even Europe. In other words, it is a very multicultural custom, which should make it particularly attractive for a politician like Mr Blair, who is trying hard to break down the ethnocentrism and parochialism of his own people.
And its ethnic charm is not its only advantage. Anthropologists have attempted to understand the custom since the English scholar, E.B. Tylor, gave it its name (from the French word couver, to hatch), and provided the first scientific examination of the couvade in 1865.
A common explanation suggests that it is a ritual way of emphasising the contribution that both parents make to the creation and upbringing of the child, which should appeal to Cherie Blair and all the other women who are angry about the "intolerable burden" that they face. So by turning to the couvade Tony could make the appropriate symbolic statements to modern Britain, without removing his guiding hand from the affairs of state for longer than the confinement itself.
But the really wonderful feature of the couvade, the quality which makes it such an ideal custom for contemporary revival, is that it is so much in harmony with the essence of New Labour and the whole range of other sanctimonious political movements that are currently so prevalent in Western democracies.
It has the outward pretence of moral righteousness -- "I feel your pain", the couvadist appears to be saying to his wife and to womanhood in general. In reality however, he is acting out of pure egotism and self interest. He is making certain that at the very time when his wife should be the focus of everyone's concern, it is he who will be the real centre of attention.
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