Speaking at an event in London to discuss flexible working as part of the CBI Great Business Debate, Roberts urged employers to accept this truth as a way of forging better relationships with working families.
"I had careers both in the City and as a football journalist, which were both very male-dominated environments. And I noticed that there were parents there who really had to pretend their children didn't exist," she said.
"I needed a different working environment, one that recognised an essential truth – that parents will always put family first and work second."
Roberts added that for many work will come "a close second", but accepting it will not be put first will make for "much better employers".
Research carried out by the CBI, based on a YouGov poll of around 1,300 workers, revealed 38% of British working parents report finding it either "fairly difficult" or "very difficult" to balance their work and family/home lives. The results are almost identical for men and women.
Another part of the research suggests 40% of employees feel comfortable asking for flexible working, although 42% would feel uncomfortable doing so.
Jill Sheddon, group HR director at Centrica, said that "the language of corporates can sometimes suffocate the debate" around flexible working in large corporates.
"When we had some round tables about flexible working what struck me is that SMEs actually did a lot of this stuff but just didn't label it as such. The mindset was that what was good for the individual was good for the company."
