My mother understands me better than anyone, and I crave her approval more than anyone else’s. I could recite her entire value system if I were in a coma. Every meal needs a salad, music is good and sport is suspect, children should learn a stringed instrument, sleeping late is a moral failing. She doesn’t actually need to criticize. She did her job so effectively 30 years ago that now she need only raise an eyebrow and I fill in the blanks on autocomplete.

In our case, all this is intensified because we live 6,000 miles away from her, having moved to California from Britain when our oldest son was a baby. Her visits are highly charged for us both. For her, staying with us is a once-a-year opportunity to spend time with her beloved grandchildren. For me, it’s my chance to prove to her that I have a handle on parenting, to get her to provide the answer to the question that claws away at me for the rest of the year. Am I a good mother? Can I ever be a mother like she was?

As soon as she arrives from the airport, I am on edge waiting for things to unravel. I know it’s only a matter of time before my kids start behaving in ways that would have been unthinkable for me growing up.

It doesn’t take long. Solly’s haunted Lego spy-base doesn’t conform to the overly ambitious picture in his head and he hurls it across the room in a fit of fury. His brother Zeph calls him an idiot, enraging him further. The baby starts crying. “I see everyone is getting very angry” I bleat, desperately quoting from some positive parenting article I read online. Solly storms off.

“Oh dear,” says my mother. I am crushed.

The uncomfortable truth is that my defensiveness comes not from disagreeing with her assessment of my parenting, but from the painful shame of agreeing.

Like many people, before I had my own children, I thought I would be better at this, that I would be a mother like my own mother was. Strong and sure-footed, enforcing calm and respect armed with nothing more than the prospect of a strongly worded expression of disappointment. My mother didn’t need extravagant sticker charts or parenting podcasts to get us to put our socks on. In my memory, we didn’t have tantrums over “transitions” or throw forks at our siblings or need participation trophies to put a plate in the dishwasher.

Whatever the elusive balance of indulgence and firmness, love and limits that makes a great parent, my mother knew it instinctively. She had the invisible sorcery of quiet authority, always kind, never needing to shout or threaten. She knew when coats and candy and comfort were in order and when they should be withheld. She knew the exact number of theme park visits that would ensure a happy and productive life. I’m furious with her because I want to be her.