Jo Davison: Speaking up for today's woman

But if we were organised enough to have such a thing as a calendar in our house, it would be encircled by a huge ring of red felt tip.

It's A-Level results day. The time when we discover whether all the nagging and the shouting, not to mention the school fees, have actually been worth it. The day Boy either pats himself on the back or kicks himself up the arse for not revising enough.

How is he taking it? Well he's grumpy, but then, what's new?

He's not sleeping too well either, but I think that's down to the fact that he's flogging his old car, piece by piece, on Ebay and he's addicted to checking what bids have come in. (Someone should do a remake of the Johnnie Cash song for the teen generation).

While the university-bound are whittling their nails to the quick, Boy can take a more relaxed attitude because he's taking a gap year.

I used to mind the gap thing. I was very wary; a doss year, I used to call it. Until a couple of years ago I interviewed a fabulous Sheffield girl called Rachel Codd who had spent a year working on organised schemes abroad. She told me how much she had grown up in that time - and how ready for her law degree she felt afterwards.

There are other benefits that come from this teen breathing space.

If he's cocked up, his pride will be badly dented but at least there is time to put things right. More importantly, though, he has time to collect himself, as well as better grades. He can think - really think - about what he wants to do in life and what he wants to study as part of that process.

There is so much pressure on teenagers to decide on which path they want to take - and in my opinion, it comes long before they are mature enough to plan the rest of the week, let alone the rest of their lives. Mine won't commit to anything in advance, not even tea. Whatever it is I'm asking him if he wants to partake in, the answer is always the same: "Don't know."

It's just in case something better comes along in the meantime.

But what these commitment-phobic teenagers fail to realise is just how difficult it makes things for the parents.

Just as we're approaching a time in our lives when we get a second wind of a social life, the little buggers that have held us in a vice-like grip for so long because they needed us still manage to wield all the power.

'Bloke has the temerity to go out for a meal with his mates'

They are entitled to come and go as they please because they are free young spirits. But us lot? We're supposed to sit, enchained by love, in perpetual parental purgatory.

We've become the just-in-casers; the security blankets they can now leave at home instead of tucking in their jimmies-case.

We get gap hours. We're supposed to fit them in around them. If you’re not there when they turn up, expecting to be fed, or listened to, or comforted, then woe betide you.

If you come in late, they stand on the doorstep, hands on hips, going: “And what time do you call this?”

Bloke had the temerity to go out for a meal with his mates after squash the other week. I was fine about it. But Boy thought it was most odd. By the time Bloke came back, he had worn a groove across the hall laminate.

I took it as a good sign, though. That he’s still protective of his mum, but also now sees Bloke as part of his property.