‘I was run off my feet yesterday, Amber. It slipped my mind.’ I hear myself explaining my actions, or lack of them, to my fifteen-year-old daughter who is shaking her head in despair. That’s not right.

Washing crayon marks off the Thomas the Tank Engine that I intend sticking on the top of a Tesco birthday cake, I turn around to face her.

‘Amber, when you’re a full-time working mother, looking after a house and raising three children, maybe then you can qualify to question me.’

‘Don’t worry, that won’t happen.’

‘Why not?’

Amber holds three balloons in both hands and walks towards the playroom.

‘I intend marrying someone with lots of money.’

‘Well, that’s disappointing to hear,’ I shout after her. ‘I would have thought if you wanted loads of money you’d be able to earn it for yourself. Not wait for some man to give it to you.’

‘Why do you presume I’m talking about a man,’ she says, raising her foot to close the door between us. She couldn’t let me win even that one.

Lifting the tea towel, I dry off the train engine and consider how disappointing it is to hear my daughter say she does not want to end up like me. What’s wrong with me? I thought I was a great role model, earning my own living while keeping the ship afloat. But what does Amber see?

Someone whose dreams of opening their own salon never came through. Someone rushing and racing, tired every night, unable to keep their eyes open to the end of a movie. Someone who spends less and less time with their friends. Gradually skipping going out on Thursday night with the girls, until eventually stopping altogether.

Is that what Amber sees? A tired old woman, not yet forty, whose life has become so busy she does nothing except fulfil the basic needs for her family’s survival.

Of course she doesn’t see that when she looks at Daddy. Tom. The calm one. The one who never loses his head. He gets to play golf, enjoy a few pints with his buddies. With ‘yes’ being the most common word Amber hears coming out of his mouth, I’m not surprised it’s always Tom she goes to when she wants permission to do something.

Like the first time she wanted to go to Wrights Disco. They both confronted me in the kitchen to raise the subject after I had been adamant she wasn’t allowed go until she was fifteen. Shoulder to shoulder they stood in front of me. ‘Sure, she’ll be fifteen in a couple of months,’ Tom said while Amber listed all the girls in her class that were allowed to go. With no energy left to fight them, I eventually gave in.