The extent varies of course, with some children effectively running the home while their parent becomes the bread winner. For some adults looking back, it’s the making of them. Gary Rhodes, the Michelin starred chef, is one of these adults: ‘becoming a one-parent family was the best thing that happened to me’. He cooked, cleaned, washed and looked after his younger sister. His mother and older brother earned the money. Why was it so good? Because he ‘had to take responsibility and it made me strong. I wanted to please, to achieve, to make things better. I wanted to be the hero’ It made him discover his passion for cooking and the rest, as they say, is history.

For others looking back, it wasn’t such a bad thing either: ‘I was loved dearly, but had to do a lot for myself. I grew up to be self-sufficient and strong and I think that’s a good thing. Now I’m divorced my girls will also learn to be self-sufficient’

‘I was an only child and my mother worked full-time. I looked after myself from a very early age. I was a very grown up and serious child. I’ve always been very careful and worried about money, and very very close to my mother. We looked out for each other’

Hindsight is, of course, a wonderful thing, allowing people who hated their childhood spent in a single parent household to see the reasons why. ‘It was awful, we had to do so much in the house, it felt like we were always doing jobs rather than having any fun as children. But now I can see that it was awful because my Mum was so miserable, it wasn’t the chores it was the atmosphere. If she’d been happier it would have been a lot easier.’

So, I reassure myself that my children’s rather earlier than hoped for, introduction to the grown-up world isn’t in itself a worry, as long as I keep myself outwardly happy (as a minimum!). Our home has to have a good atmosphere for the lessons in self-sufficiency to be good lessons.