It used to be that when my kids cooked, it filled me with dread. Fear for the state of the kitchen, which would end up looking like three mini tornadoes had a food fight with tomato paste, melted chocolate and flour. That was tomato paste wasn’t it? You could never tell… Then there was the terror of actually having to taste what they’d cooked.

But there was also a thrill when they pulled something off, and over time became expert in their own signature dishes – a great basil pesto, chocolate fudge cookies or an onion chilli jam that was better than their mother’s. Moving out of home meant they had to cook for themselves if they wanted to eat. There was also the fact that, given my job, anything they cooked came with expectations from their friends. Sorry kids.

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Time and confidence has made them all good cooks, and we benefit when they move back home for a spell (thanks in part to a housing shortage that I see as a silver lining for me, if not for them). That sense of dread has gone, but the other day something else – something unusual –happened. I started getting a little misty-eyed and emotional when one of my kids made me breakfast.

I was confronted with a high and handsome toasted Turkish roll with a filling of crispy bacon, runny-yolked eggs, sliced avocado and splashes of fresh coriander, and a judicious mix of chill onion jam, a little mayo and sriracha. I don’t know what got me feeling this way. The fantastic flavour? The fact everything was cooked just right? The care of the process? Or maybe the fact that he now had a social skill of real value.

It happened again when my eldest made a perfect vodka pasta. And again when my daughter made potsticker dumplings and – as if to prove it’s not all about my gastronomic snobbery – she made a Mars Bar slice, but with Curly Wurlys instead. Every one of these culinary moments was emotional. I had to examine why I was feeling this way.

It was something more than just the reassurance that comes from knowing your children have the skills to put dinner on the table. It was a sense that they had grown up, and now they were able to look after me. It was a realisation that if your kids are selfless enough to want to cook for you, then you haven’t done a horrible job as a parent. There was also an inkling that this wasn‘t just pride in them – it was the knowledge that they had passed into the next phase of their lives, when they will eventually become the providers for their own children. It’s the knowledge that this new-found independence is part of them moving on to a self-contained life of their own; one we will inevitably be less involved in.

While the sight of them cooking still might make my eyes a little dewy, I would no doubt be in absolute floods of tears if I came down to find that they had unloaded the dishwasher (and put everything away in the right place), laid the table or helped with the clean-up after dinner. But I reckon that box of tissues is safe for the moment.

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