Everyone knows that teenage children are hard work. Moods, spots, lethargy. Locked bathroom doors and grunting. Screaming heebeejeebee demands for a new pair of bleached jeans at 10pm on a Wednesday BECAUSE IT’S MUFTI ON FRIDAY! (Thank goodness for Next’s next day delivery).

Try coping with all of this when you’re fighting with hormonal hysteria at the other end of life. This is what we ‘older mums’ are having to tussle with.Trying to hold it all together while our own brains do their best to turn to mush.

Not so many years ago a mum would have waved her kids out of the door by the time the menopause struck – to uni, work or married life. Now we have hormones going barmy in sync. My daughter is 15, my son 13. When we get hormonal at the same time it’s like Armageddon.

I’m not surprised the man of the house is now the man of the shed.