I worry constantly about the safety of my grown-up daughters

The dilemma I have four lovely children, all now adults and left home. I rarely worry about my sons, but I constantly, constantly fret about my daughters, who both live in shared houses in distant cities.

They are very good about keeping in touch, and sympathetic to my anxiety, but it is reaching unmanageable proportions. For example, if I look at WhatsApp, I might see that one daughter was on it, say, 30 minutes ago, but the other hasn’t been on it all day. I will then look to see when they were last active on Facebook. If she hasn’t been active on Facebook either, I will telephone her.

I’m not sure when I became so anxious, probably when I joined WhatsApp and realised that I could tell when they were online.

I have difficulty sleeping, imagining that they have been abducted or have been in an accident. I appreciate that a certain level of maternal anxiety is the norm, but 30 minutes after checking on them I will be thinking, “Well I know they were OK half an hour ago, but are they OK now?”

I really don’t know how to re-establish a normal, manageable level of maternal anxiety that doesn’t rule my life.

Mariella replies I know how you feel – and there are few parents who won’t sympathise. The dangers that women face have become horrifically apparent recently: scroll through #EveryonesInvited or any newspaper and you can’t ignore the evidence of misogynist attitudes that make harassing women a sport for some. But, as you say, we have to put these things in perspective and try not to lead our lives hostage to anxiety and fear.

Learning to alleviate your symptoms is your first port of call and I’d recommend trying cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which your GP can point you towards. As for the underlying societal causes, that’s a whole other story.

I was thinking recently about how my own mum must have felt, waving goodbye to her 16-year-old on the Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead ferry at a time when a house phone was a luxury and the mobile didn’t even exist. When I left Ireland for London my mother survived on irregular notes and letters, sometimes waiting a month or more to hear from me. It would have been insufferable for her to worry to the extent you are, and impossible to sustain. Yet I’m now very much in your camp, where concern about my daughter whenever she’s out of my imposed safety bubble is all-consuming. It suggests that the availability of 24-hour contact – and even tracking – isn’t necessarily a blessing. Statistics are our friends here and they say that the majority of us will not be the victims of random crime, sexual or otherwise.

Growing into adulthood, we all – men and women – have to learn to navigate the world for ourselves, cognisant of the dangers, but keeping awareness of peril present and at a minimum in order to live life. Your anxiety, while totally understandable, serves none of you well. You need to trust that your girls will have learned from you a good measure of sense in how they comport themselves and how to minimise risks. It may be infuriating that they have to be so cautious and aware, but that is where we find ourselves.

On a wider scale, what’s keeping me awake at night is asking why, in the space of my life, we have regressed when it comes to the way in which half of the population is terrorised, demeaned and discriminated against. Why is it that the second-wave feminists and their righteous anger weren’t enough to guarantee that their daughters and now granddaughters could step on to our streets without a backward glance?

Too many of us worry about our daughters, mothers and friends as they use public transport at night, walk the 200m home on a lamplit street, fly to a city where they may not know the rules, or drink one too many cocktails in the wrong company. I say all this not to exacerbate your anxiety, but to encourage you – indeed, everyone, male and female, young and old – to take action to call a halt to sexist banter, misogynistic representation and crimes, such as unequal pay and undervalued contributions.

I may have lost my sense of humour, but what’s giving me enormous pleasure at the moment, despite my simmering fury at the world our daughters are growing up in, is to see them seething, too. Even a few months ago it was common for teenage girls to say they weren’t feminists because they no longer needed to be. Now, with testimonials piling up, sexism is no longer a joke and feminism no longer reserved for the female of the species. If we don’t make radical change, the joke will truly be on us for continuing to serve up the meals, service our families and keep the day job ticking over – but failing to make sure that it comes at a cost to the recipients. That price is respect for women and the right for us to walk the world fearlessly.

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1