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ABSENT PARENTS

I AM not an absent parent. Absentminded, perhaps, but physically present. Indeed, it is rare for my children to come in from school and not find both their mother and father at home.

We are not part of some smothering sect, there are sleepovers, school, scouts and work trips. But still, as a family, we seldom sleep under different roofs.

This is not how it was for me as a child. My parents worked overseas and I went to boarding school in the UK. My parents, in their 80s, are of a generation where separation was the norm, thanks to World War II.

Those estrangements cannot be helped. But some of the literary characters who are judged most morally wanton — and wanting — are neglectful parents.

Think of Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, the warring divorced parents of Henry James’ What Maisie Knew, serial divorcée The Bolter in Nancy Mitford’s comic novels, or appalling social-climber Undine Spragg in Edith Wharton’s The Custom Of The Country.

Some absent parents are treated more sympathetically. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina falls headlong in love with Vronsky and leaves her marriage. But she misses her son Seryozha terribly, secretly visiting on his 9th birthday.

The absence of a father haunts The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore, a stirring new family saga set on the Isle of Wight. Sisters Rachel, Imogen and Sasha seem to have everything, but their father Richard’s abrupt departure, and the fallout of their parent’s marriage, has stunted their emotional growth.

Another new novel, Maame by Jessica George, explores how a parent’s absence can force a child to grow up too young.

Maddie was just a teenager when her mother started spending long stretches in her birth country of Ghana, leaving Maddie as her father’s carer. Maddie is nicknamed Maame, the woman of the family — though it’s not a role she sought.

Should you get a moment alone, these are good company.