With my kids away, I’m expected to relax – but I’m too busy cyberstalking them | Emma Brockes

I once scoffed at the idea of empty nest syndrome'. Now I scour camp photos like a homicide detective, on the lookout for scowls or sunburn

On Sunday I dropped off my kids at camp and, all going well, I won't see or hear from them for two weeks. This wasn't part of my plan for the summer. Sleepaway camp, a staple of American childhood, isn't in my background and the whole idea of it filled me with dread. At their age - eight - I would have hated it, I'm sure, being sent away and forced to have fun. But my children aren't me and they pushed and pushed until finally last week I gave in. So there they are, at a lake in New Jersey, and here I am, in New York, alone.

It should be good for all of us, this period of detachment. Unless you favour the Edwardian model and ship off your kids to boarding school as long-range training for ruining the country, parenting young children is intense. Single parenting, in the absence of immediate family, can feel - in my case, as a single parent of twins - like being one person divided into three.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist based in New York