Sir Alex is proof that work can enhance family life

"I decided to quit last Christmas," he said. "Things changed when my wife Cathy's sister died. She has lost her best friend."

His statement highlights our attitude to work. Work is something that sits apart from – and often opposed to – family. But is it the great enemy? Or is work the wellspring for family life? With our long-hours culture and with more than two-thirds of mothers working it's a question that gnaws at most of us at one time or another in our lives. There are now 2.25 million mothers of children under four working. That's a rise of 350,000 in the decade.

I could take bets that most of them are riddled with guilt. But should they be?

We presume our children are short-changed when we go out to work. We worry about them in nurseries in the care of a stranger and fear we are losing touch with them if we aren't at the school gate every day. Look again at that picture of Fergie and ask yourself what served his family best? Was it the time he spent with them – or was it the benefits he bestowed upon them?

Yes, I am talking about money among other things. I'm sure his wife, three sons and 11 grandchildren have enjoyed the fruits of it. It will have given them lovely homes, good schools, nice clothes, foreign holidays and opportunity.

But it's only one of the blessings his work has brought. Like all parents, he is a role model – and a good one. Through his work they saw his diligence, passion, dedication; his loyalty to his team and to his heritage. They saw how never growing complacent led to repeated success. They saw that success is the reward for sheer hard work.

His family has seen him lauded, respected, given a knighthood and tipped for a peerage. Wherever they go they carry with them an echo of his aura. To be his son, his grandchild – even his great-grandchild – is to be somebody. It will allow them to walk that little bit taller.

How do we measure that benefit? How do we set it against the might-have-been of a dad who spent Saturday morning mowing the lawn and afternoons kicking a ball around with his boys? How many dads – successful or otherwise – actually do that?

We expect children of hugely successful fathers to be messed up. The Maxwell brothers seemed diminished by the shadow of their bullying father. Rupert Murdoch's son James lacks the charm and panache of the swashbuckling father.

But as long as children are permitted freedom to develop in their own way and to their own strengths, instead of being asked to follow in father's footsteps, why should they be disadvantaged?

Great men may not spawn great men but they can produce well-rounded offspring who enjoy successful lives.

Great women can too. A glimpse of the grief on the faces of Carol and Mark Thatcher at their mother's funeral dispelled the notion that her career had rendered her distant. Hillary Clinton's daughter Chelsea looks easy in her own skin despite two high-achieving parents. The ever-mellow Shirley Williams had Vera Brittain for a mother. My heart doesn't bleed for the junior Camerons or Cleggs – and the Blair children survived well.

When the daughters and sons of high achievers walk into a room their inherited glamour goes before them. It's indisputable that all children want to feel they are the lodestone of their parents' lives. The question is does that require long stretches of time spent together – or can it be expressed in other ways?

It's a question I have wrestled with since I became a mother. I always believed that one parent should focus on the children. As a result I worked from home to be close to mine. I always thought that the best way to "have it all" is sequentially: raise the children to a reasonable age and then return to full-time work. I'd still want to spend the first three years with my child.

Did Sir Alex's work/family balance succeed because his wife Cathy kept home homely? I'm sure it helped. But I know couples, friends, acquaintances and contemporaries where both parents worked full-time when their children were small. They left them in the care of child minders, au-pairs, grannies or nannies.

And what is the upshot now that they have grown up?

It might comfort the increasing numbers of young parents who have to work to hear that hand-on-heart I can't spot the difference between those who had a stay-at-home parent and those who didn't. It's anecdotal but the children of those who worked have achieved as highly as those who did not. They're likely to have seen a bit more of the world, enjoyed more material benefits and so far as I can see, they are every bit as well balanced and emotionally healthy.

Of course, there will be others: the casualties of working parents. But then there are also casualties of parents who didn't chase a career. I've been dwelling on people with star status; people who can afford to provide treats to counterbalance the disadvantages of absence. Most of us work to stay solvent with maybe a slightly better car/house or school catchment. But providing financial security is crucial to the well-being of any family.

To get a glimpse of what a child's life is like without it read This Boy, the recently published autobiography of the former Home Secretary Alan Johnson. His mother Lily worked herself into an early grave in a heroic attempt to raise him and his sister. It was only after her death that they were moved out of squalid rented rooms with a basic bathroom in the basement into the comparative luxury of a council flat.

Poverty takes no prisoners.

And while children are artless and non-materialistic when they arrive into our lives, once they are in school it doesn't take long for them to spot the Joneses and aim to keep up.

What starts with a need for the right trainers moves on to smart phones and tablets – and it all costs. I'm not saying it should be pandered to; obviously not. But there isn't a parent alive who doesn't sometimes want to sprinkle a little stardust into their children's lives.

And the way to obtain it is through oft-despised but always rewarding hard work. For that lesson, we should give Fergie another round of applause.