Vicky Ewan: How parenting transforms your life

If you're very lucky, and, just like Julie Andrew’s Maria von Trapp, somewhere in your youth or childhood, you did something good (and also - crucially - if you want them), you might be blessed with children. 

Sometimes, it’s hard to see their blessedness; when you're sleep-starved and befuddled in the early years; when their childish voices are clamouring for your undivided attention every minute of the day; when you could cheerfully banish them from hearth and home, so fed up are you of constantly reminding them to tidy their room/do their homework/wash the dishes. 

These challenging stages seem endless and interminable - but, suddenly, you look around, and those days are in your past. Your offspring are no longer clinging, chubby-armed, to your clothes, breathing down your neck, or reliant upon you every second of their waking hours (and most of your sleeping ones). 

In what really surmounts to the blink of an eye, they have become capable, independent, autonomous human beings, able to reside alone, make (almost) wise decisions, and manage their own lives. 

You have the freedom to take a step back, and regard, with no little wonder, that you have manufactured a fully-grown adult and steered them into the world, and that your days of hands-on parenting are over. 

You might relax your filial senses enough to indulge in the next great fantasy: grandchildren. Or you might simply lie back and bask in the glory of an end to responsibility and the careworn nature of your days, liberated at last from parental prison. 

Sounds too good to be true? Well, that's because it definitely is - at least, in my experience. They might grow up, move out, live in an entirely different part of the country to you, but your role as caregiver to your children never ceases. 

Over a course of one afternoon recently, I had several demands on my maternal expertise (and I employ the term very loosely, I can assure you; having five children has in no way made me an expert mum. I am constantly learning - and failing - on the job). 

One daughter, whose parameters of arachnophobia far exceed my own, messaged me in some desperation, citing a harrowing encounter with an eight-legged beastie. I imparted soothing words of comfort, composed empowering mantras, and offered support from afar - but what could I do to help, really? 

She was alone in her flat, in London; no extendable entrapment device available could supply the ability to reach across the miles and extract the offending article, and no bullet train in the world could hoik me from one address to another in a timely enough fashion to manage the situation myself. 

Having been forced to contend with and dispose of spiders as a young mum (by relocating them; I absolutely cannot hurt them), and having vowed not to pass on my own fears (ha!), I have an innate sympathy for my daughter's plight, and have succeeded in developing a slightly thickened skin for close encounters such as this. 

Sadly, I suspect my daughter is beyond help - her fears are simply unsurmountable. After a short period of silence on that particular afternoon, I enquired as to her progress. I was impressed to discover she had bravely managed to re-enter the room wherein the behemoth skulked; however, she was resolute that there was no way she could remove it. 

No amount of cajoling or morale-boosting on my part was going to work. Fearing for her future in the apartment, I was relieved when she declared that her flatmate had returned home and dealt with the matter. 

She even provided a video of the imposter - and, I admit, I was horrified by its dimensions and chunkiness. 

Situation thus resolved, my daughter went on to bemoan a persistent issue with a new jacket, whose synthetic material had an unpleasant odour that she couldn't shift, despite sponging it with lemon juice and - unadvisedly - subjecting it to a washing cycle. 

Somewhat stymied, I pinged across reassurances that the smell would fade eventually; she remained unmollified, resigned to her alternatively malodorous or chilly fate. That same afternoon, my elder son, home alone with our dog during the day, phoned me at work to share the unwelcome news that she had been sick. 

I furnished him with instructions for which cleaning products to use, talked him through what to do, and wished him luck, all the while wondering how he would have coped had I been otherwise engaged. 

It's no wonder that I end most days feeling like I have been in face-to-face negotiations with top diplomats and sat on advisory boards for struggling companies (with little positive effect, unfortunately). 

But I guess that's just the way it is; after all, I was still seeking my mum and dad's advice well into their dotage. Once you're a parent, you're a parent for life. And really, just like Maria von Trapp, I wouldn't have it any other way.