AS I resorted to letting my children have leftover doughnuts before they left for school so we could at least leave the house on time, I realised a television comedy about being parents was long overdue.

And I don’t mean a Disney saccharine-fest where the adults are idiots and the children are poor put upon geniuses who are juggling inept parentals.

I mean something that recognises we are all just trying to do our best - and sometimes this is just not possible.

So as I strapped my toddler into his car seat, triumphantly holding his iced treasure in his sticky hand, I didn’t feel quite so bad.

Motherland, which just started a six part run on BBC2, is the treat we all need at the end of a stressful day.

And while it is doubtful you would ever actually behave like the characters, or say some of the things they utter to other people, it is what you wish you could say.

This week working mum Julia, whose own mother has decided she is no longer going to help with childcare, threw an ill-advised party for her daughter in a bid to garner a bit of free babysitting.

Foul-mouthed chum Liz, who is easily the best character in this, advised if she held an event which was a “drop and go” the other parents would have to do the same and she would earn herself some child-free time.

Of course, it back-fired, and all the parents stayed and judged her as she laboured through the afternoon, complete with inept children’s entertainer, judgmental guests and a birthday girl who had gone down with norovirus but not before she had possibly licked the birthday cake.

Children’s parties are, in my opinion, only ever fun if you are in fact a child, or it is in someone else’s house.

And it turns out this is probably the view of the writers, who include Father Ted’s creator Graham Linehan and Sharon Horgan, of Catastrophe fame.

You can tell parents had a hand in this - there is so much fine detail only those who had tried to entertain a pack of baying pre-schoolers would ever come up with.

But even if you don't have kids, this is witty and very wise and is worth watching for Diane Morgan, as Liz, alone.

I will never look at a pound coin in quite the same way having watched her advise Julia to chuck one into a room and send the party-goers in to search for it.

I could have saved myself a lot of money on craft items if I had come up with that idea myself....