A Misjudged Decision
“I’ve made a decision you should go back to work.”
Looking back now, I still can’t quite fathom what Harry expected when he uttered those words. It certainly didn’t thrill his wife.
“Go back to work? Harry, have you forgotten we’ve got little Jack? He’s three, not thirty-three. Hes not properly settled at nursery yet, and youre suggesting I just”
“Listen to me carefully,” Harry cut her off, gesturing for her silence. “I know being at home with a child is exhausting. Sometimes its enough to drive you round the bend. Especially after a day at work. If youre tired, fine! Well hire a nanny. Yes, its an expense. But I’m not going to permit you to stay at home idle.”
Emily set down the bowl of porridge shed just made for Jack.
“Wait a minute. So, let me get this straight? You want me to return to work, and instead of me staying with Jack, well pay someone else to mind him?”
“Exactly!”
“And whats the sense in that? If youre willing to pay good money for a nanny to look after our son, then why shouldnt I just mind him myself? Or, do you honestly think that bringing up Jack is worth less than hiring some stranger?”
Harry had clearly been expecting this.
“Em, its not about the money, nor is it about the value of your work as a mother,” he explained. “Its the principle that matters. Try to understand. If you sit at home, youll lose touch with life, completely. Youll only socialise with other mums at the nursery and talk about nappies and raincoats. That wont do. Everybody ought to earn their way.”
He paused, letting his words settle.
“And anyway,” he added, “we only need a nanny for a couple of hours, just to collect Jack from nursery. Its not that much. Ive crunched the numbers. We can manage.”
But picking up a child from nursery is hardly all that’s needed. Theres the evenings, the drop-offs, the days off when hes ill…
“Marvelous work, Harry. You’ve really factored everything in! Quite the economist,” Emily couldnt help but be sarcastic. “Shove your wife into work so shes frazzled both there and here, plus still responsible for the child.”
“Dont exaggerate,” Harry frowned. “Youll be bored just sitting at home. Out at work, youll grow its not as if Im suggesting you sweep streets.”
After several weeks of silent but tense negotiations, Emily relented. She found a job swiftly enough. It was a typical position a client services manager for a small firm that delivered office stationery. Two thousand pounds a month. Not a fortune, but it was something.
And so began a new chapter in their family optimisation.
Emilys workday started at half-eight and ended at seven in the evening, Monday to Friday.
Mornings became chaos. Harry, who rose at seven-thirty so as to be at his more important job, managed to have his breakfast but contributed little to the scramble beyond barking directions.
“Em, did you pack Jacks spare clothes? Will you drop him at nursery? Ive a meeting at nine; cant be late!”
Emily, hastily buttoning her blouse, tried to cram her lunch into her bag, check shed not forgotten anything, all without stepping on Jack, who, as usual, wanted to keep napping on the floor.
“All set, Harry!”
Emily had to arrange the nanny herself. Lucy was her name a sweet, twenty-year-old linguistics student who, while keen, had little understanding of the challenge that is entertaining a three-year-old for three hours.
Lucy fetched Jack at five. She minded him until half-past seven, by which time Emily had usually struggled across town and made it home. Two and a half hours.
Initially, Harry was well pleased.
“Two hours is perfect. And you make it back in time. Brilliant!”
But brilliance proved costly.
“Twenty pounds for two hours, Emily,” Harry grumbled as reality dawned on him. “Thats five days a week a hundred pounds weekly!”
Emily, worn out from work, simply gave him the look: I did warn you.
“Oh, Harry. Barely a drop in the ocean for us. You said yourself it wasnt much.”
“Well I thought itd come to less Cant you arrange to leave work a little early? Then we wouldnt need a nanny.”
Cheeky.
“You came up with all this, so you arrange leaving early,” Emily shot back. “If I start making such demands, Ill be out of a job, and then what?”
Harry clenched his jaw.
“I cant leave early! My job keeps us afloat. I earn three times what you do, Em. You need to keep perspective!”
But his words had no effect. Emily didnt even blink.
“So what, Harry? What difference does it make to me that you earn more mind you, not three times as much if I barely see daylight? Im running from the moment I wake, dropping Jack at nursery, off to work, rushing home so as not to overpay the nanny, then the evenings housework and playtime with Jack. It never stops. So, what do I care what you make?”
Harry huffed about his ungrateful wife; Emily went off to sort Jacks bits for the next day.
It wasnt easy, but they muddled through.
Half a year in, Jack started getting ill.
It began with harmless colds, then nastier coughs. Tonsillitis, bronchitis you name it. His immune system clearly wasnt fond of nursery.
Whenever Jack was ill, home he stayed. Which meant Emily stayed too. And, even at the best offices, sick-child leave paid far less than her usual salary.
Shed take days off. Two thousand pounds became a thousand, or even less.
“Look here,” Emily showed Harry the payslip. “Ive sat at home with Jack for two weeks. This is what Ill be paid there. Seven hundred.”
Harry scratched his head, knowing as well as she did that this hardly counted as a wage. Theyd hand almost half of it over to the nanny for the other two weeks.
“Its only short-term,” he tried to reassure her. “Once he stops being so poorly, well be back to normal.”
“And until then?”
But when Jack was well and Emily back at work, Harry started commenting on the house.
“Em, I know youre a busy woman, but yesterdays dinner is still on the table. The dishes are piling up. Im exhausted. You get home before me you could at least wipe the surfaces?”
“I work too, you know!”
“But weve a nanny! If theres a nanny, you must have time for the house.”
“The nanny is so Jack isnt alone while Im at work! Whats that to do with housework when I get in? Harry, have you lost your wits?”
Harry flared.
“Who else is going to do it, then? You expect me to clean up? I work! I earn the living so that you can”
“So I can come running home at half past seven and immediately start scrubbing the house? Oh, marvellous.”
Jack, overhearing their row, began to cry in the next room.
“But you always managed before!”
“That was before Thats it. You said everyone ought to be working? Fine. If everyone works, everyone cleans.”
She went into the lounge, sat at the table, and opened her laptop.
“Heres my list,” she typed, hardly looking at Harry. “Weekly cleaning, daily dishes, cooking three times a week, laundry, ironing… Youll be doing half. Thats your share in this family.”
Harry peered at the list, uncertain.
“Youre serious? Me? But I”
“You youre part of this family. And you wanted us both to be responsible. So, you handle finances and your share of the chores. Now Im working two jobs paid and unpaid.”
Harry grumbled, tried wriggling out of it, even feigned a sudden bad back.
“I cant, Emily, my spine Im not used to this! Its womens work!”
“And Im used to coming home at seven to then work till midnight while you lounge about, moaning I havent vacuumed? You wanted principles? Here they are. If we both work, we both do the housework.”
And so they had to get used to it.
Harry discovered that washing up after cooking (which he now did every third day) took twenty minutes, not five as hed always thought, the dishes just quietly vanished when Emily did them.
His first attempt at laundry was hilarious.
“Em!” he yelled from the bathroom. “Whys there so much washing? Are we running a launderette?”
“Because there are three of us, and the clothes need splitting by colour, too.”
“Splitting by colour, as well”
Jack eventually grew stronger, got over his endless colds, and Emily kept working. The two thousand a month was certainly useful and she knew where every penny went nursery, the occasional helpful nanny (less and less now), holiday savings…
One evening, Harry came home to find Emily in the kitchen, quietly chopping vegetables for salad.
“Hows it going, busy bee?” she asked.
“Alright,” he said, grabbing a bottle of water. “Submitted my report. Got to head down to the warehouse tomorrow. Ill be back late.”
“Thats fine. Ill put Jack to bed. When youre back, would you mind washing your plate?”
He didnt even mutter.
“You know, Ive been thinking,” he said, settling onto a chair, watching her slice parsley, “You werent wrong I mean, you were right. We should all help each other out. Its easier together. In more ways than just at work”
