Status Anxiety

17 May 2008

My wife and I have ended up as stay-at-home parents — with a part-time child

Policy Exchange, the right-wing think tank, has published a report recommending that mothers should receive a universal childcare allowance which they can then use to pay for part-time help or, if they decide to give up work, compensating themselves for loss of earnings. The idea is to make it more affordable for mothers to spend more time with their children.

As the husband of a stay-at-home mum, I have my doubts about this. I daresay my children reap the benefit from having a full-time mother — that seems to be the view of child psychologists, at any rate — but it is a disaster for dads. By the time I finish work every evening, Caroline is so fed up with the kids that she dumps them in my lap and then locks herself in the bathroom. Not only that, but I am expected to be the primary care-giver at weekends, too. The upshot is that I never have any time off. I have not read a newspaper in five years.

Friends who are married to working mums, by contrast, are on easy street. Their wives are so wracked with guilt about not spending enough time with the kids that they completely monopolise them whenever they are at home. The role of the fathers in these households is to wave benignly at their children as they walk in the door before uncorking a bottle of wine and collapsing in front of the telly. At the weekends, while I am traipsing round Legoland, they are practising their golf swings in Berkshire.

I am not even sure that my children are better off. I recently gave up my outside office which means that, in effect, my kids have a stay-at-home dad as well as a stay-at-home mum. Having to contend with both parents moping around the house all day is proving a little too much for Sasha, our four-year-old. We are beginning to get on her nerves.

For instance, the other day she found Caroline and me in the sitting room trying to put a pair of antlers up above the fireplace.

They had once belonged to a ‘royal’, a source of considerable pride to me. ‘Why are you putting those up there?’ she asked.

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D Short

May 17th, 2008 2:29am Report this comment

When a bloke thinks a story about his four year old is interesting enough to fill a column then you know he's in trouble.

I didn't read the whole thing, by the way, or I'd know I was in more trouble!

THX1138

May 18th, 2008 3:39pm Report this comment

Toby-Well I enjoyed it. I have a couple of mates with stay at home wives with similar tales of childcare woe. One friend has an extremely demanding city job but his stay at home wife with nanny & housekeeper hands the kids over to him the moment he gets home- It your turn now I need a break. I keep telling him that he should tell her to take his evening calls & bloombergs but she doesn't seem interested.

I tell you the modern London man in my class has a tough life he is expected to go out & earn not just a living but a small fortune which means some sole sapping city job so they can afford a W11 mortgage, school fees & decent holiday so on & so on. And then cook the evening meal after popping into Waitrose on the way home while the wives swan around competing about schools, holidays, personal trainers, & marc Jacobs bags while the Nanny look after the kids. Men are such suckers.

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