Housekeeping

Thinking again about the film "The Boys are Back" (see the previous post), the most obvious change that occurs for the husband after his wife dies is in the running of the household. One part of this is housework and the other is parenting, although they are obviously interconnected. In the film the house becomes overwhelmingly messy, and the domestic routine is cut down to basics. His young son gets dressed by walking out to the clothes line and finding things to wear. In parallel to this, his parenting is more laissez faire, and chaotic. In one scene he remarks "There are fewer rules, but bigger ones". On the fridge are the words "Just say yes", and as a father he lets his children take risks he thinks that they can handle. The positive side is that he makes a choice to spend time with his sons, and for him that take priority over a clean house. I'd like to locate the book on which the film is based - "The Boys are Back in Town" by Simon Carr -- since I'm sure it gives a more nuanced picture than a feature film can achieve.

The "standard" of our housekeeping touches sensitive areas for many, and one quickly enters the minefield of gender politics. At the back of my mind is my family of origin and the way the household ran, but overlaid on that is my joint history of fifteen years of living with Jen, and the contact with her family of origin as well. I was tidier than Jen - at least I was more impatient with untidiness, and my standard routine after getting home and giving Jen a hug was to start tidying up the living areas. As for cleaning, I was likely to be more thorough than Jen (move furniture to sweep etc), but take longer and do it less often. Our joint life was constantly complicated by Jen's low energy from the long tail-end of chronic fatigue syndrome (and later arthritis, and then chemotherapy in her last ten months). The discussion was never about what was "fair" but about how to conserve Jen's strength while keeping the house in order. During Jen's first year with arthritis we paid a friend to come and clean fortnightly, and another friend did the same during Jen's treatment.

So how are we faring without Jen? It may be news to some people, but men can do housework, and in fact there's nothing very difficult about it. I don't make beds with hospital corners (Jen did half a nursing degree before getting CFS), and I fold sheets in a different pattern, but my way also works. I don't browse cookbooks for enjoyment, as Jen did, but I can cook well enough. The key issue is priorities -- is it more important that I play table tennis with my youngest son now, or that I start cooking dinner? Can I enjoy having people over for a meal if the house isn't that clean? Is it better that I improve the boys' domestic skills, or that we have more time to talk?

Almost every family faces similar issues, especially when both parents work (inside or outside the home). The challenge as a single parent is that the compromises are greater for me. The house is not as tidy as I'd like, nor are meals as interesting as I'd hope, and I'm not as good as parent as I want to be. My work suffers too. Every day I have to accept I can't even vaguely approximate the life we had when Jen was alive. There are at least 10-20 hours per week that Jen put toward our joint life, and it's ridiculous to imagine I can find all of that that time now.

So we muddle through in our imperfect way. A few things work better because I have to more organised. I wrote a lot of Christmas cards in 2009 and 2010, when we hadn't done much of that for years. School notices are completed and sent back the next day. I'm getting better with remembering birthdays in Jen's family. But mostly I cut the work to fit the time. The basics -- clean clothes, meals, tidying etc - get done daily, and the other tasks happen less often than I'd like, usually when they begin to really annoy me e.g. dirty finger marks on doors. As feminists from the 1950's realised, housework can be an endless sink for time. I admire friends who have a washing system where they sort into about five different categories, but I've reverted to one where just about everything goes in one wash each day, and then through the drier. It's not as good for the clothes, but there's always something to wear and the washing basket reaches empty.

At a deeper level, the boys need me around giving them attention far more than they need a spotless house, or than I need to be a dedicated employee. I'm still struggling to keep them involved in helping with housework, and that to me is an important element in their preparation for independence. At the same time I need to keep carving out time to relax (always late at night). Here I am after midnight writing a blog when I could be sleeping, or folding clothes or wiping off fingermarks. As a parent, and a housekeeper, and a worker, I'm still standing on one leg. There's always an undertone of loss, but all I can do is get on with it, even if I have to hop.