Am I a good mother or bad one... how do you know?

What is the yard stick of measurement?

And when do you truly know to cut the apron strings?

Help! My newly graduated son, the one that I have supported for the last 22 years, has just told me that he's not cut out for work... And I'm left wondering where the hell did I go wrong?

My daughter on the other hand is the complete opposite apart  from some grubby bedroom habits. When she's working, she is a great employee giving well beyond expectations.

I suppose the twenty four million dollar question is... when to cut the funding for both kids???

How much money spoils the child verses advances the child...

I absolutely know that my work ethnic came from the absolute lack of money available to me in my early years.

I was working at 15 years of age, night after night in a local restaurant and I don't think that I have ever really not worked except the 8 months that I took off when I had my first child, Sam. But then this time possibly  doesn't count as I was running and working at a local restaurant that my sister and I co-owned.

In fact my work habits make my son's look positively non-existent. Is it just a generational thing or have I failed miserably as a mother?

I reflect on the students fresh out of tertiary institutions that seek jobs with my company.

Firstly, the badly prepared CVs, then the underprepared interview, coupled with a comme ci, comme ca attitude that doesn't show any real urgency to secure work.

No wonder 27% of them are unemployed or unemployable as is the case of my son, as I certainly know the digital space that we operate in at the moment lends itself to youth recruitment. It's just finding ones that fit and want to work that's the difficult thing.

It's true that my role as mum to my two kids has a few years to run yet, it's certainly has hadits rewards and its challenges and I'm sure there's more of both to come as they marry and start their adult lives and families.

I guess I have to hope that the values I instilled will be as important to them as they are to me.

After all, surely we are all ultimately a product of our environment and life is about the way we connect with others. As Mark Twain so famously said, it wasn't until he had left the education system that the real learning began...