Parents' evening. Mr Nearly ex-Husband arrives from a meeting with our son's teacher as Pest n.1 and n.2 are about to finish their dinner.

Pest n.1 sits very straight on his chair, looking ahead. He is still wearing his uniform, strangely clean and tidy despite a day of boyish efforts to collect bruises, rips on his short trousers and potential loss of 'Golden time' for naughty behaviour.

I sit straight too, as if it were my own night of reckoning. My mind is suddenly bumped into a tunnel of dark memories, my parents reading the school report and always finding the one chink in the otherwise shining portrait of a model student: among the sublime praises, there would be the fair comment about my inability to grasp numbers, or the need for quiet and sensible behaviour.

I never got total, loving approval. I got approving nods, as if the wide range of my efforts were simply to be expected; my weaknesses were always stretched and examined under the harsh light of parental microscope.

Mr Nearly ex-Husband puts his reading glasses on and reads from notes taken during the meeting. Pest n.1 keeps his mouth tightly shut and steals a look in my direction. I smile a Wallace and Gromit smile that wriggles my nose.

Pest n.1 will be put in a special class for outstanding results in...maths. The rest of the report is glorious too, including those social skills which have, at times in the past, let the boy down; but as Mr Nearly ex-Husband's voice reads on, and my baby's face breaks into a little smile, and he looks at me proudly, I do not hear the words any more.

Do we live through our children's achievements, sometimes? I lived my childhood years never quite understanding whether I was worthy of love regardless, or whether it was a currency to be dispensed carefully according to my school grades. I was a high achiever without too much effort but there was always a higher peak to climb, a better height to reach before acceptance might follow.

I was proud, tonight, although I am no longer sure of whether I was proud as a mother or as a little child who has been waiting thirty-odd years for unconditional praise.

Maths! The irony of life.