Some interesting replies, I'm surprised by the number of poster's who appear to broadly share the opinion expressed in my earlier post. Perhaps the world isn't going bonkers after all.
As an aside, I'm currently recruiting for a senior admin role in my business, I had a candidate contact me via phone yesterday who sounded suitable for interview but would not commit (even to an interview let alone the job) until she had been sent - in writing - our maternity pay policy. A rather odd priority I thought! Certainly not a common occurance in my experience, but perhaps a sign of the way peoples mind sets are changing regarding employment.
My wife would love to be working, we could do with the money, have a mortgage etc and she could certainly do with the stimulation and reward of returning to her career, but we chose to have children and she decided they were more important than anything else, others have a different view, but we all make our own 'choices', why inflict the implications of those 'choices' on an employer?