I danced naked down the hallway when my last child left home. Whenever I tell that story, some friends share my glee although others reveal they are heartbroken when their kids leave.
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That was the moment, I thought, which would mark the beginning of freedom. Bye bye money worries. Farewell emotional upheaval. Tata to the sound of the key in the door at 4am.
I was wrong. I worry about my children now more than ever.
That last goodbye signified the beginning of new concerns about their lives and I now recognise that waiting for the key in the door should have been the least of my fears.
My children are part of a generation for whom work is at the whim of employers, home is in the hands of capricious landlords and, as we see now, some relationships are just a toy for governments to whip up hate.
The labour force figures released on Thursday claim to show unemployment and workforce participation are steady – but those measures were designed at a time when if you worked for an hour a week, you were highly likely to be working full-time.
In the 1960s, it was an accurate and meaningful description of a world in which men worked full-time and women cared for children.
But the world of work in which my children and yours are employed is so far from that – they work November to November and anxiously wait for new contracts from July and I wonder just how productive you can be when you aren't even sure whether you will be working in that place next year.
When you work in those conditions, you are at the mercy of your employers.
The pressure on your mental health is huge and it hardly surprises this generation struggles. Some have no sick pay.
If you think you are worried about superannuation now, imagine what it will be like for your children.
Between 2005 and 2016, the number of workers, such as casuals, without leave entitlements rose by over half a million to 2.5 million – that's a quarter of all employees.
It's possible they will never know any different.
One-third of the employees aged between 15 to 34 don't have those entitlements, compared to just 17 per cent of people over that age.
There are now 1.3 million independent contractors without employees and these are without super guarantee. They now make up 11 per cent of all employees and independent contractors.
Ben Oquist, the executive director of The Australia Institute, pored over the ABS figures released on Thursday and he tells me young workers are stuck in part-time jobs and they don't have enough work.
One in five of those aged 15 to 24 want to work more hours – and that's three times as many as the rest of the – much older – workforce.
I met my beloved when I was 21. We married a few years later, bought a house for $74,000 right under the flight path in Sydney's inner city and had three children in five years.
We both had full-time jobs and between us have only had a handful of employers in our four decades of work.
My fortunate Baby-Booming life set me up for those exact expectations for my children and nothing could be further from the truth.
Instead, I fear my own children will never be able to own homes unless their parents die quickly.
Do I still dance naked down the hallway?
No. That feeling of freedom was false.
Jenna Price is a Fairfax Media columnist
