M is for MONEY and MOTHER, often sadly confused in the young adolescent mind. It's also for MISTAKES, which is what adolescence is for. How else will they learn?

When they wanted to show me how much they'd grown, the boys would rest an elbow nonchalantly on the top of my head, and say "Well Mother..." So condescending.

Until they needed cash. Then it was no longer "Mother" but the wheedling, cajoling "Mummy dearest" as in "Mummy dearest, any chance of my bus fare/money for cinema/football match/sports centre/chips/new trainers?"

Sounds familiar? Harden your heart. Now.

Research has just proved that young single men have the biggest problem with debt - the average twentysomething male owes £14,000. Gulp.

So it makes sense to try and hammer some money sense into your little boy as soon as poss. But don't ask me how.

One of my boys always has a little stash of cash - just as he always saved one Smartie or some of his birthday sweets. The other one spends money like a drunken sailor on 24-hour shore leave. At eight years old he was once so desperate to get rid of the last of his money that on a trip with me to a garden centre, he bought a soil testing kit - without even knowing what it was.

What hope, eh?

And now offers of credit cards, and loans, and money-making deals pour in by every post. Luckily, he never even sees them. They go straight off the mat into the bin.

His bank knows what a mess he makes with money. Why do they keep encouraging to make an even bigger mess?

But there are some small, very small, signs that he's beginning to get his head screwed on about financial matters. The other day he rang asking for my bank account details.

"On yer bike, " I said.

But no. He wanted to put money into my account.

There was a long silence while I tried to grasp this compete reversal of the natural order.

My son wanted to put money in my account? In the space of a nanosecond, all sorts of possible scenarios whizzed through my fevered brain... perhaps he'd won the Lottery or the Premium Bonds... perhaps he was in a boy band and had signed a contract...perhaps he'd saved the life of a generous millionaire who wanted to thank him. And, in turn, he wanted to thank his dear old mum who had done everything for him.

Fat chance.

The reality was much more prosaic - and one that didn't actually involve him giving me any money, (How on earth could I think that - even for a nanosecond?) but just resting it in my account.

He had a little stash of cash, a sizeable stash really and he has plans to use it this summer. But the money had only been in his hands for a day and he'd already gone into drunken sailor mode and bought a sweater and some CDs.

"If I've got it, I'll spend it, " he said, with touching self-knowledge, "so can I put it in your bank account for the next month?"

Sounds OK by me. And I suppose he trusts me not to leave the country in the meanwhile.

But if I'm not here next week...