Friday, February 13, 2009

Hit him with a stick for crying out loud, and if that doesn't work, stop making his dinner for him!


I have more than one friend with this problem, but one friend in particular is annoyed with her husband for never getting up at weekends and deal with the kids. So all week, he has to sleep because he needs his beauty-S for work, and at weekends, he needs to sleep in because he's had such a stressful week at work. Well, Hello? This is such a cliche I can't believe I'm using it, but since when was home-making (I hate that word BTW) not hard work? Since when did taking care of children not require anything but the sharpest head?
- What does he think you do all day? I ask.

My friend belongs to the more dedicated of mothers, not fully an alpha, but close enough. She drives her SUV around town all day, picking up and dropping off and scheduling activities and has time to do a pot-roast and has all the tupper ware to go with it too, I mean, the woman is a Hellrazer as far as I'm concerned. At ten o'clock she's exhausted and drops dead in bed. She hasn't read a book in years. She has no idea what goes on culturally, she doesn't even know Reality TV, it was that long since she sat down in front of a screen that didn't show Elmo.

Meanwhile, after work her husband still has time to play Tennis, go to the gym, play a few rounds of golf, and comes home to home cooked-warmed up dinners, peaceful silence and no arguments over the remote control. And he gets to sleep in at weekends while she's up making pan cakes and getting the kids ready for soccer practice.
- What would he do if you wanted to go back to work? I ask her. Would he start doing his share of the work at home?
- Maybe, she says. Thing is, he doesn't really enjoy house-work?
Well, who the F*** does?
- And he wouldn't know what to do with the kids, I mean, that's my job.

Honey, your kids are your kids, not your job, and you had them with your husband, and you made this decision together. Did he think it was something that would be fun but that he didn't need to take any responsibility in dealing with them?
My friend needs to get a grip of her life and shake some sense in to that husband of hers. He's not suddenly gonna wake up one day with an urge to do something nice for his wife. She needs to beat him over the head with a stick: "This is our family, this is our home and our children, we started it together and we work it together and we share this, all of it, the good and the bad."

2 comments:

  1. You are absolutely brilliant! (Have written comments before but the posting never works... Keep your fingers crossed that this time it will...)

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  2. Hi Ann-Katrin, thank you for your kind words. They made me very happy.
    Take care.

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