According to media reports this week, television presenter Adrian Chiles has split with his wife of ten years, Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour host Jane Garvey, because his burgeoning career has now eclipsed hers and his supposed inability to turn down work, leaving him stressed and with less time for her and their two young daughters.

No matter how in demand someone is career-wise – which can be flattering and financially seductive – work shouldn’t come before family commitments. Professional success is notoriously fickle; you might be flavour of the month now, but in a year’s time you could have been supplanted by someone younger and more ambitious. Yet your family’s needs are constant and ultimately more important.

Too many people put too much energy and time into their careers and too little into nurturing their domestic lives, believing, I suspect, that family can be sidelined, however temporarily, for the “benefit” of furthering their career. While I understand the desire to work hard for financial security, no amount of money can compensate for losing your family, which you might well do if you don’t give them enough attention and commitment.

Also in the news this week was a warning from a top police woman that gang culture is replacing family life among a generation of disaffected young people. Barbara Wilding, the Chief Constable of South Wales, said family ties had been abandoned in place of "tribal loyalty" among young gang members, who have become "almost feral".

Although she was talking mainly about deprived parts of many larger English cities, there must also be youngsters who are turning to gang culture because their family has been torn apart by one or both parents’ over-dedication to their jobs.

Ms Wilding’s stark warning underlines the social, as well as personal, risk of putting careers before home life.

We live in a culture of long working hours and demanding employers and it’s easy to get sucked into the daily grind and forget we need quality time with our families – and time for ourselves too.  In more laidback France, there is a tradition known as “cinq a sept” (five to seven), where workers down tools at 5pm and spend the next two hours relaxing – in a cafe with friends, shopping or going to the gym – before returning to their families, so they arrive home refreshed rather than stressed out.

Work is important, of course, but family is more so. Someone who understands that is Nicol Stephen, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and former Deputy First Minister, who yesterday resigned, having decided to put his family before his political career.

The 48-year-old father of four said in a statement: "Everyone involved in politics knows that there are stresses and strains on family life. But when it goes beyond that, when it crosses a line, something has to be done. And at that stage – when you have to make a choice between family and politics – there can only be one answer. The health and wellbeing of your family has got to come first."

 I couldn’t have put it better myself.