Children Of The Revolution

Yesterday at lunch my sister and our hostess were talking about another friend of theirs who has decided to give up her powerful job to spend more time with her kids. Less powerful husband is freaking out because he is going to have to step up to the mark with his career and stop lounging around at home with the kids. My sister and our hostess described other depressing examples of couples they knew where things are falling apart: because he can't get a job to match his last salary; she can't figure out why he is incapable of getting out of bed; where he resents his in-laws paying the school fees; where she and he are competing against each other every inch of the way.

All eyes turned to the writer of househusbandnot who would no doubt have something pithy to contribute to this discussion.

"Well my wife and I try and communicate how we feel about...things," I said weakly.

I felt lost. I needed my wife there to help me out by describing some of the clever and modern conversations we have had about me being at home at the moment. But she was in Brighton on a hen weekend, and I couldn't think of anything else to say. And I was feeling under double pressure since the husband of the house where we were having lunch - the sort of manly man who could disarm a bear with a spoon - had been asking what a blog was, and on having them described to him as a diary on the net had said "How boring". Our hostess saved me by telling a funny story about a recent 'night out with the girls' which concluded with her texting "Run?" to her only other ally at the increasingly tense and bitchy gathering. Which they did.

My wife returned home on Sunday evening from the hen weekend. More tales about girls being girls, and boys - at the nightclub they went to - trying to be boys. The lunchtime discussions and some of the stuff about hen nights made me quite sad about the state of men and women, and our continued misunderstandings and misgivings. Today I am feeling that househusbandnot is not serious enough and it is effectively contributing to the still-deep chasm between men and women, and how we think about each other and socialise and work or don't work and worry, but don't tell each other. Mind you, I have only had like half a visitor to the blog since I started it last week, so I should not be so self-important..or boring.

And as a good friend was reminded when she found it written on a placard in her dad's office recently: I Don't Want To Be In Your Revolution If I Can't Dance.

In other news, the guy who is doing the bedroom ceiling just called. He has car trouble and can't make it today. And music-wise am recovering from a Tragically Hip gig on Saturday evening. Karaoke for Canadians.