“Yes, dear, and he finds it just as difficult to switch on the Hoover and locate the iron,” you may want to add in barbed tones to the ever-observant Lara. Whether or not you're a full-time mother, housework will, at some stage or another, be a contentious issue.

“Chore wars”, as they've come to be known, are all the more messy if they haven't been resolved by the time children come along. To give Lara a fair and honest answer, much will depend on how well and amicably you have discussed and agreed on who does what.

If you have happily carved out traditional roles where your partner is out working and you're at home, then it's a pretty straightforward answer. You could say: “Daddy earns money so that we can live well and I look after you and do the cleaning, which is just as important. We play to our strengths but we're both doing the same amount of work.”

Or you could be a little less rosy but more realistic and say that, even in these supposedly enlightened times, women still end up doing rather more around the house than they probably want to.

According to a report by the Royal Economic Society last year, married women spend on average 15 hours a week cooking and cleaning compared with only five hours a week for married men.

You need to consider what messages you want to give to Lara. Would you mind if she was ironing her husband's shirts in 30 years' time? As Dr Katherine Rake, the director of the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equality between men and women, says: “If we want roles to change, we have to give children a real sense of equal role models.”

But we have to lay the groundwork first. “You need to have a policy that's been discussed between the two of you,” says Christine Northam, a relationship counsellor for Relate. “What you don't want to end up doing is saying something negative in response, such as: 'Dad doesn't use the Hoover because he's lazy, so I have to do it.'”

Maybe there's no harm in reminding Lara of that old-fashioned saying: “I like hugs, I like kisses, but what I love is help with the dishes.”

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