Rowan Pelling: Just another potential incubator in kitten heels...

I used to be driven mad by an advertisement that announced to the viewer with dewy-eyed sincerity, "You're unique, you're incredible!" I would find myself shouting back at the TV, "You're nothing, you worm; you're a speck of dust, you wear beige slacks, you live in Basingstoke and tomorrow you'll be pushing up daisies." The growing-up process demands the realisation that, as part of an ever-expanding worldwide population in an infinite universe, your existence is of no import whatsoever and only your mum truly thinks you're special (even your best beloved is statistically likely to replace you given half a chance).

I used to be driven mad by an advertisement that announced to the viewer with dewy-eyed sincerity, "You're unique, you're incredible!" I would find myself shouting back at the TV, "You're nothing, you worm; you're a speck of dust, you wear beige slacks, you live in Basingstoke and tomorrow you'll be pushing up daisies." The growing-up process demands the realisation that, as part of an ever-expanding worldwide population in an infinite universe, your existence is of no import whatsoever and only your mum truly thinks you're special (even your best beloved is statistically likely to replace you given half a chance).

There are times in your life when this disagreeable fact is driven home particularly brutally. A couple of years back I was having a fierce disagreement with my then MD when he said in the menacing tone of Blofeld before he trains a laser beam on to Bond's gonads, "Nobody's irreplaceable, Rowan." True: there are plenty of young women with a few editing skills and a surfeit of footwear. In retrospect this skirmish was less dangerous for having happened on open terrain. I was able to retreat and prepare my defences. When you really need to worry is when you sense such predatory thoughts lurking behind the hooded eyes of every colleague - such as when you announce to workmates that you're about to go on maternity leave.

The New Statesman, showing the comradely concern that we expect of socialists, has run an article saying that Radio 4 Today presenter, Sarah Montague, has "made the tactical error that has blighted so many women's careers" by becoming pregnant. It tactfully goes on to point out that her stand-in, Carolyn Quinn, has had an ecstatic reception from listeners, while many regard Montague as "shrill". The most unpleasant thing about this article is how true it rings in the ears of any expectant mother. Hardly surprising that BBC stunna, I mean newsreader, Emily Maitlis, who has just revealed that she's expecting a baby in July, said, "I would like to come back relatively quickly." How quickly? Can she beat the ultra-paranoid record set by Fiona Bruce, who was back at the Beeb within 16 days of giving birth?

I am now feeling worried that my own approach to maternity leave has been comparatively negligent. In three weeks' time I am intending to disappear from my office for a self-indulgent six months, and it's clear to me that I should have arranged for the workplace equivalent of a stout but kindly Bulgarian au pair to be my stand-in. Instead, my gorgeous, talented deputy editor is "acting up", as the company so ominously puts it. I should have recognised the perils of abandoning my male publisher to her creamy bosom and winsome ways.

On the other hand, there's a reasonable chance that he may recognise that she's just another potential incubator in kitten heels. Anyway, there's nothing less sisterly than continually blocking your juniors' paths and squatting like a bloated spider at your post while others stagnate. An actress friend of mine understudied a theatrical matron while she simpered on stage utterly implausibly as one of Shakespeare's ingénues opposite an actor who was almost 20 years her junior. In the 18 months of the play's run the great woman never had the decency to have laryngitis for even one afternoon, largely because my friend had committed the crime of being 26 years old.

I don't want to appear similarly ludicrous by dashing back to the Erotic Review in a smock and maternity bra, lactating all over the proofs, as my staff float around in fishnets and chiffon slips. It's time for me to show some generosity: on 2 April I will say to my deputy, "Become who you were born to be"- i.e. someone too stressed even to think about reproducing.