PARENTS WHO WORK full time outside the home - mothers, of course, in particular - reacted to the recent Panorama programme with predictable rage.

The last thing the overburdened working parent needs is a dose of guilt - because the truth is, we feel it anyway. If we didn't, programmes like that couldn't hit the raw nerve that they do.

Many of us have spent so long not letting the side down, trotting out half truths about happy working parents rearing contented children that we find it hard to say it straight: it can be very tough at times to take good care of children when both parents are working outside the home.

Children, on the whole, would prefer one or other of their parents to take care of them, and will let you know pretty quickly if they don't like your alternatives.

Research about academic performance seems truly irrelevant to the issue. The real question is: what do you do when your seven year old cries every time you have to work an evening shift? How can you concentrate on work if your last glimpse of your three year old was his face pressed to the window as you left him with his new au pair that morning?

How can you resist feeling a twinge when your 13 year old (now an expert at twisting the knife) wants to chat and asks, "Will I make an appointment?" And the killer: "Why can't you stay home to mind me like so and so's mom?"

Paradoxically, parents are more concerned than ever before to make a good job of parenting, to rear bright, happy, self confident children full of self esteem - even while it's becoming the norm to hand over responsibility for them to someone else for most of the week. Most of us want desperately to do our best, even when we can't - or aren't willing to - work full time in the home.

Yvonne Milner, a senior psychologist with the Eastern Health Board's parenting skills unit, feels many parents carry a burden of guilt and confusion trying to meet all the different demands on them. She often meets parents who are fitting a course on parenting into an already exhausting schedule, "It really its hard for them," she says.

Parents feel a lot of guilt around childcare, Milner adds. And if they really have no choice about whether or not to work - if they're single parents, if two incomes are needed to survive - they may feel overwhelmed by their powerlessness to change the situation.

The children may be the first to let them know if things aren't right - and it's important to listen to them, say both Milner and senior child psychologist Andrew Conway. If the children are constantly telling you, by word or action, that they need you, you have to pay attention.

"That doesn't mean that you should give up work if your five year old says plaintively, `Mammy, I don't see you very much'," Conway says. "But if your children are old enough to talk it over, you should give them a fair hearing, take stock, agree to do something regularly together, make sure you have some quality time together, so that the child's needs can be met.

Listening to your child is fundamental, Milner agrees, especially if they're telling you something you don't want to hear. You should listen both to what they say and what they don't say; try to be sensitive to non verbal clues - and then "see if you can sort it out a bit".

ONE KEY TO "sorting it out" is to get the right sort of childcare. Clare's five year old son had been providing lots of non verbal clues that things weren't right for him for more than a year before Clare (not her real name) took decisive action.

His behaviour was desperate, and he and his parents were really unhappy.

"I used to feel horrendous guilt - by 10.30 a.m. I felt the day was three quarters over. John and his little brother used to watch me do everything, hang around me as I got dressed; then as I got ready to leave, he'd tell me he didn't want to stay with his minder, then there'd be the last look at the window and I'd worry about them all day long."

So Clare decided to hire a trained nanny - and she transformed their lives. "I used to think that being kind hearted was the most important quality in a childminder, hut now I know that training is really important too. Our new minder has a plan for the children for every hour of every day, understands what's important to notice when John comes home from school, is sensitive but firm.

"Before the minders really just fed and minded them but she's rearing them. And I feel so unguilty!"

Good childcare isn't cheap of course: Clare's nanny, an Irishwoman who had several years experience abroad, costs her £163 a week, and doesn't do housework - so Clare still has to iron and pre prepare meals at night, but she's so relieved children are happy she doesn't mind.

The fact is good childcare, childcare that's right for you and your children, is a bit of a lottery. Finding the right person - and the person to replace them when they leave, the person who will be right not just for your cute baby, but for your difficult toddler, your school age child - often seems impossible.

A creche staffed by professionals might seem perfect, but children are different, and some will flourish in a group situation, others might not. Each child in a family is different, and the au pair who is brilliant with a little baby might not have a clue how to take care of your eight year old.

So, at the very least, those embarking on a career of "working parenthood" have to be aware that they will be lucky to find just the right person to mind their children (and should slavishly treasure her to make sure she never quits).

In the end of the day, the most important thing is to have a good relationship with your children, whether you work full time or part time outside or inside the home. "Work is irrelevant to that," Andrew Conway says. "You could be at home all day and have a poor relationship, and be a busy professional person and have a strong relationship."

Both Conway and Milner warn that guilt itself can breed problems: both say that if a parent is ambivalent about whether they're doing the right thing, a child will pick it up and reflect it back.

"Children are more secure if they feel that you know what you're doing, Milner says. "They don't want to take on adult worries."