During my teens and early 20s, I made some fairly dodgy romantic choices. There was the Sulker, who would stop speaking to me for days at a time for reasons ranging from a Scrabble result in my favour to an argument I’d started by accident. There was the Talker-Overer – a man who had no tolerance for my opinions and no understanding of the expression “indoor voice”. There was the Runner of Red Lights, a description that was literal and figurative. And every time I’d murmur “They might be the one!” I could rely on my mother to purse her lips and soundlessly reveal her negative opinions. She’d be polite to every prospective suitor, but she’d make it clear to me that she knew what she wanted for her eldest daughter, and these men weren’t it.

So I can understand the online commenters who sided against Cheryl Fernandez-Versini’s mother, Joan Callaghan, this week. After Joan met her daughter’s new boyfriend, Liam “One Direction” Payne, an article warned against “the curse of Cheryl’s Mum”, claiming that the former Girls Aloud singer’s bad luck in love was brought about by her mother, who is alleged to interfere in Fernandez-Versini’s relationships by “insisting” on meeting her daughter’s new partners early on. Former son-in-law Ashley Cole has also spoken about how he spent his time in a “gaming room” to avoid her during his marriage to Fernandez-Versini.

However, the older I get, the more I think that mothers like Callaghan, and my own, should be applauded. Our lazy, dismissive attitude to mothers-in-law is simultaneously stunningly sexist and ageist. Callaghan is the parent of a twice-divorced adult daughter who has to deal with constant attention and public scrutiny. Why wouldn’t she worry about her? Why shouldn’t she want to support and advise her child, and protect her from getting hurt again?

Oscar Wilde might have claimed that turning into my mother constitutes a tragedy, but I don’t agree

I’m lucky to have a mother-in-law who has a relaxed relationship with my husband and me – but if she wanted to exercise a little more control in our lives, I’d do my best to respect and listen to her. Now in her 70s, she has raised five grown-up sons. She’s seen much more than me, and she’s much wiser. It would be horribly arrogant of me to ever think that I knew better than her. More importantly, she loves her son, and she’s entitled to ensure that his wife does too, and is acting in his best interests.

It’s helpful to remember that our partners aren’t always the only thing we have in common with our in-laws. A straw poll of close friends reveals that most of us think that our mothers have better, smoother relationships with their spouses than they do with us. If I spend too much time with my parents, away from my partner, I revert to a 31-going-on-14 sulky nightmare child, taking all comments on my career choice and hair colour as criticisms. However, when my mother and husband are together they start proper, interesting conversations that I want to take part in. Together, they make me better, and I’m a 100% less likely to storm off in the middle of dinner.

Sometimes my husband reacts to something I’ve said with a spooked smile, explaining: “That’s so weird – just then, you sounded exactly like your mum.” Superficially we’re not similar at all. She’s a tall, slender brunette with the ghost of a Lancashire accent, and I’m blonder, fatter and mysteriously speak as though someone might be buying me a horse. But some of the attributes that drew him to me are qualities I share with her – a passion for cooking and eating, a love of reading and a fondness for awful puns and knob jokes.

Oscar Wilde might have claimed that turning into my mother constitutes a tragedy, but I don’t agree, and I couldn’t have married anyone who thought those words were true. My mum might not always approve of every single one of my choices, romantic or otherwise, but she loves me and she’s looked after me. She’s smart, and she’s wise. Most importantly, she wants me to be happy – a wish that I hope every parent has for their child. In most cases, our mothers have earned the right to maintain an interest in our adult relationships. If a potential partner can’t respect your mother from the start, it might turn out that they don’t have much respect for you either. At least if you don’t get on with your mother-in-law, they might not stay your mother-in-law for long. Fernandez-Versini has shown us that mums are the ones who last the course, but if you don’t make an effort with your partner’s parents, you’re probably the one who will end up left out of the relationship.