We are on TV tonight, should you care. It’s a brief appearance, but I’m on screen just long enough to face the question every woman dreads: are you a good enough mum?

Crikey! I’d rather tackle extreme algebra than answer that.

Despite spending eight years pondering parenting in this weekly column, and reading your views, I still can’t decide if I’m a good enough mum.

I’ve brought up four children over 14 years, but I’ve no idea if I have done it right.

Sometimes, I’m so darn motherly I think I’m up there with maternal role models Michelle Obama and the ever-loving Marge Simpson.

At other times, I fear I’m a less glamorous version of Sue Ellen Ewing from Dallas or Ab Fab’s ridiculous Eddy Monsoon.

But it’s actually impossible to prove what counts as good enough mothering, isn’t it? When TV broadcaster Anne Robinson, a sort of emotional dominatrix, peered over her glasses and asked me this question in the chaotic comfort of my own home, I had no idea what to say.

All I know is that, having watched the new documentary Anne Robinson’s Britain: Parenting (BBC1, 8pm), none of the other mums featured seemed to answer this question with great confidence, either — apart from the ‘attachment mum’. Anni, a warm 43-year-old with seven home-schooled children who never seem to be out of her sight, was sure her maternal choice was right.

Good on her, I thought, watching her breastfeed a very tall toddler. Oh, to be so assured about being a mother — because, frankly, I find every day a challenge (even more so now I have a teenager). If I manage to make it through to the Ten O’Clock News without having a little cry secretly somewhere, I feel ‘blessed’, as they say nowadays.

Anne asks awkward questions of seven types of parent in the hour-long programme. She tackles so-called ‘tiger mum’ Sherise, who has three fiercely scheduled children. Their days are often 18 hours long to include clubs and extra lessons. Sherise takes her teenage daughter to the gym at 6am, three times a week.

Corinne has five boys aged from 11 months to 17. Her relaxed approach involves no one learning to read until they are seven and lessons in the ‘forest school’.

Steve, a dad of four, has a strict regimen based on his Christian beliefs, while Kristina is a stay-at-home mum of three who adheres to a rigid, printed schedule, with rewards for tasks completed within a time limit (getting dressed, etc).

Then there is Tommy, a single dad of five kids aged six to ten, who relies on food banks and always produces home-cooked meals. His ‘loose tight ship’ way of parenting, as he describes it, is a joy to behold. It’s noisy and unpredictable, but everyone mucks in.

Tommy’s crowd control skills are questionable, yet his family seem ridiculously happy. Both his eldest children are in the top sets at school and Tommy seems to have filled their lives with confidence.

His children say they rarely watch TV, preferring to play. I snorted my tea across the room in shock at this, but it was Tommy ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ from whom I learnt the most.

I still don’t know whether I made the right decision to go on TV to explain why I don’t feel guilty about being a working mum (I don’t), but I have made the right choices for me and my family.

Sometimes, I am a good enough mother and sometimes I’m not. We all fail, we all make mistakes, but we all love our children.

There are, apparently, some 35,000 parenting advice books and a million online mum forums, which prey on our fears of not being a good enough mum — but Tommy offers the best advice I’ve heard.

When Anne quizzes him about how he copes, he says: ‘It’s not easy, but it is do-able.’ And that just about sums it up.

LORRAINE CANDY is the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine.