It's not anything, it's everything

At the start of third term last year, at the start of October, I took on the full load of the new life - both boys at school, myself working full time, and with no-one else at home to help. People would often ask how I was coping with the domestic routine. Some, not knowing me well, would assume that I must be a complete novice and that Jen must have been the only one who made the household run. Now as I'll go on to explain later, Jen did make a very major (I was going to write "indispensible" ) contribution to our joint life, but I was still involved in all areas, and that was consistent with how we saw our marriage. Thus the individual tasks -- cooking, cleaning, shopping, parenting etc etc -- were all familiar. That's at least true of the regular events, although I found that some of the occasional 'maintainence' tasks were new - I'd never bought clothes for the boys, or trimmed the cats' claws, or tended to sick poultry. But it was the total sum of the tasks that was staggering - not anything in particular, but everything together.

As the months have passed, that mantra has become more of a statement about time management and the limitations and opportunities of my new life. The pace is frequently crazy - keeping track of the whole calendar of family commitments, organising after school activities, working full time in a demanding job, trying to keep in touch with friends and family, being there to talk with my boys, finding time to relax at night. In the American vernacular, it's "the whole nine yards". That is to say, it's not much different from the lives of other single parents, or even of married people where one partner takes most of the domestic load in addition to their outside job.

I don't want to reduce Jen's contribution to numbers, but I'm guessing that apart from looking after herself and her own commitments (e.g. voluntary work at Secundus's school), Jen spent about 30-35+ hours per week making our household work. That's based on two hours on a school morning, and three hours at the end of the day, plus another three to four hours on each day of the weekend. Here I'm thinking of the essential tasks e.g. I'm not really considering gardening.

Put in that way, how can I possibly manage that load in addition to what I did when Jen was alive (where I also contributed to household tasks)? Part of the answer is that I've 'outsourced' - friends and family do school pickups for four days, which saves at least 8 hours a week, even though I do all the morning drop-offs. But the other part of the answer is that I've had to compromise the quality of everything that I do in order to keep afloat. I could do my job with much more thoroughness and dedication; I could cook in a more creative, healthy and ecologically sustainable way; I could be around more for my boys at the end of the day. In my brief free time, I could practice piano more diligently, write better poetry, and stay in better touch with my friends. I could also get a healthy and sustainable amount of sleep, instead of being constantly and dangerously tired. Yet I can't do everything at once, and none of the choices are particularly easy to make.

I have thought of other possible ways to organise my life, and friends have kindly offered their advice as well. I could try and work part-time, say four days. The downside is that for financial reasons I'd probably have to change Primus's school (and Secundus's options for high school), especially if interest rates went up more. I'm very grateful that I've so far been able to maintain a lot of the externals of life for myself and the boys -- the house, my job, their schooling and activities -- and I think this continuity has helped our slow recovery. In contrast I know friends experiencing separation or divorce who have had their whole daily existence shredded into unrecognisable fragments - marriage, house, possessions, job, parenting, self-esteem, hobbies - compounding the grief and perhaps anger of the initial loss. Given my salary, I'll be better off paying people to do more of the mundane tasks e.g. cleaning and gardening. However there's still the hurdle of finding the energy to organise it, and the compromises of letting others into the house. I may well move in this direction to save my sanity.

Another approach would be to use before and after school care for Secundus, a common option for many families. However in our discussions about the future without her, Jen was quite strongly opposed to this option. In essence, she always wanted to look after her own children rather than pay someone else to do it. It's rather like the principle that a business should not outsource its central functions, but only the peripheral ones, otherwise it can't maintain control over what really matters. So for Jen parenting was such a central part of our family that she didn't want anyone else to do it. My response to Jen's request was to say that I'd try not to use after school care, but I couldn't promise that I wouldn't - it didn't seem helpful to make promises that I might not be able to keep. As it is, I have entrusted some of the care of the boys to friends and family, and I'm constantly grateful for the effort they put in. I hope their reward is great in every way.

Another suggestion would be to use a nanny or equivalent person -- that is, pay a single person to manage school and the boys until I get home. It would simplify the current fragmentation, where I have to manage the interactions with the many who help us now. The word 'nanny' does evoke for me some English upper class stereotype of the children being brought in to see their parents for half an hour in the evenings, and otherwise cared for entirely by someone else. Mostly I find that an appalling picture, although there are odd moments when it's secretly very attractive. Apart from the cost, the most challenging part would be to find someone I could trust enough, and who would get on well with both boys. I may still look into this option.

Beyond core domestic needs, I face a continual conflict over my use of 'free' time. I've always been a person with too many hobbies and interests -- reading, piano, poetry, chess, running, genealogy, computing, history etc -- and have tended to respond with a long burst of enthusiasm for one hobby, before switching to another. Time to myself really begins when Primus is in bed - it should be 10 pm on school nights, but it's drifting -- and so it quickly becomes very late. Yet this time is essential to my ability to relax and feel human. I need more sleep, but I'm spectacularly failing to get to bed much earlier (1 am is about my norm now). The choice is so difficult because it's a conflict of goods - should I chat to a friend until late, or go to bed at a sane time? Even this blog (which often takes an hour or more per entry) is hard to fit in, and there's still so much more I'd like to write. Is it valuable? It is for me, and perhaps it has value for some of my readers. Is that worth losing sleep over? I don't always know, but as it's again 1 am, I'll head for bed.