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What must it be like to be a single parent? I’m one month alone with one child, and I can barely stand it. It’s not the cooking, the washing, the cleaning. I’ve been well domesticated for years. I can do all that.

It’s the supervision, setting boundaries, the making sure they’re doing what they’re meant to be doing, and not doing anything — let’s say — naughty.

I feel fortunate that in a few days’ time — if the Most Merciful wills — this experiment will come to an end. If things work out, we will be reunited again, and return to something resembling normality.

Still, I find the stresses overwhelming, even after just a few short weeks. I just can’t do it alone. Grandparents are too far away to offer their steadying hand, and in any case I fear their rebuke.

I have immense respect for those single parents — both men and women — who have raised families all alone. I don’t know how they did it. They must have some kind of superpower. I need some of what they’ve got.