Two weeks of intensive organising, a group of dedicated workers, a media blitz and what ought to have been a catchy slogan, "Every day is Mother's Day" - yet only about 200 people turned out for the child care march to Leinster House early last month organised by the National Women's Council.

But this dismal turnout can easily be explained: the reality is that most women do not wish to have a State-run child care system of the type favoured by the council. This is not to suggest that child care is not an issue because manifestly it is a huge problem for the thousands of women who work outside the home. Largely for ideological reasons, child care has become synonymous with collectivised, State-sponsored care rather than being individualised and private. Many women currently make their own arrangements using neighbours, mothers, grandmothers and sometimes private creche care rather than campaign for State-run facilities.

The most frequently cited argument in favour of such a State-sponsored initiative is that it would allow more women to enter the workforce and would also facilitate the goal of achieving increased economic independence for women.

There are two fallacies in this argument: first, the mantra that increasing numbers of women wish to work outside the home is unproven. Many of these jobs are in the low-paid sector and are taken out of economic necessity rather than from any belief that personal or intellectual fulfilment will be the reward.

While some women do want economic independence this is not universal, and many see marriage not as a competition for the largest bank account but a partnership of give and take with the weekly wage being but one small aspect.

Far from wanting to enter the job market many women opt to take time off during their children's early years either by working part-time or by becoming full-time housewives. It is highly likely that at least as many women wish to leave as to enter the workforce at any time.

Of course, it was not supposed to be like this at all. Traditionally, women did the nurturing and men the providing and the dividing lines were clear and distinct. Then came the feminist movement with its promise that the sexes would share the providing and the nurturing in equal measure.

Unfortunately, this shift, with few exceptions, was in one direction only, with women now having additional roles thrust upon them while men remained cemented to the old ways.

Many women now carry the burden of role overload, having to be mother, wife, housekeeper, provider and general organiser, one of the factors cited as responsible for the increasing prevalence of depressive illness among young women.

Increasingly, women also feel caged by the economic tyranny of extortionate mortgages and rising social expectations. Some men - though still only a few - are now publicly declaring themselves to be stay-at-home fathers, opting to care for their children while their woman partner goes out to work. Some are even beginning to speak of the exclusive expropriation of the politics of child care by women.

Despite the clamour for group child care, most parents know intuitively that multiple carers are not good for children, especially those under the age of three.

From birth children are being socialised and form attachments which will be a template for future relationships. The high turnover of staff in creches, resulting in multiple and disparate carers, has caused many child care experts on both sides of the Atlantic to look askance at group day-care.

One of the best known, Penelope Leach, argues forcefully against group care for children under the age of two. Burton White, former director of the Harvard Pre-school Project and a leading researcher on the first three years of life, has said: "After more than 30 years of research on how children develop, I would not think of putting an infant or toddler into any substitute care programme, especially a centre-based programme." Dr Spock, despite modifying his position in the face of feminist critics, commented: "It is stressful to children to have to cope with groups, with strangers, with people outside the family. That has emotional effects . . . " For the average young child, being in a creche is likely to be the stress-equivalent of a nine-hour drinks party every day.

So what should the response of the Government be to calls to deal with the child care "crisis". It manifestly should not be to establish a network of State-run creches since at best they will provide only mediocre care. The Commission on the Family published its recommendation in 1998.

Although several options were examined there seems to have been a discounting of the possibility of tax breaks for child care on the very reasonable basis that single income families would be subsidising dual income families. Moreover, this option seems to have been excluded from the recent Budget on the grounds that it would not benefit the poorest 25 per cent of families.

Other recommendations include allowances for parents to take time out to remain at home when children are very young, or increasing child benefit, thereby benefiting all children irrespective of whether their parents work in the home or outside it, part-time or full-time. If the Ministers for Finance and for Social, Community and Family Affairs were to take the courageous step and choose the increased child benefit option, as favoured by the Combat Poverty Agency, then they could truly be said to be promoting the maximum choice and flexibility in relation to child care.

Although the trickle will never become a stream, it is likely that more men would opt, at least temporarily, to be carers rather than providers. Equally, women who choose to remain in the home would have increased economic independence instead of the tokenism of which they are currently the victims. Those working outside the home could then make their own child care arrangements as most currently do anyway.

The State cannot become a surrogate parent; the State cannot love our children but it can assist parents in our function as the primary educator and carer of our children by supporting us in our child care choices in a fair and equitable manner.

Patricia Casey is Professor of Psychiatry at the Mater Hospital/UCD