Friday, 7 August 2009
Torn
6.00 am and I'm the only one awake. Sun raking in from the East. The baby is trying to prolong an endless sleepy suckle on Lu's breast that we should have put a stop to months ago. Grace is sprawled next to them. Anna flat out in her own room. I shall sneak down to The Office (sic!) and write this entry. A fantastic little bit of time to myself, no-one tugging, no nasty shift in the bank balance, yet, just me, cooing pigeons, hungry cat and the freedom to find my centre and start writing here. Aaargh .... just making tea when I hear them stir upstairs. Should I go up and help now or pretend I haven't heard. I'll ignore them just for the few minutes it takes to write this. I'll pretend Lu hasn't had a bad night and do my own thing, just for a few minutes, oh, but I should join them now, change a sodden nappy, plan our trip to Tessa's mill because, hey, it's the weekend and I shouldn't be working now, should I... I should be present, participating, helpful, good-natured - not pursuing delusions here at the keyboard. But maybe just a few minutes more...
The Snooze
It takes most of the drive home from the nursery before Bobby finally nods off. A little twist of the rear view mirror shows me that Grace is still asleep, her head lolling uncomfortably against the hard window trim. The challenge now is to maximise the time for my own snooze before one of them wakes up. The question is where to stop – the road is so hemmed in by private property that there’s nowhere obvious to park and the few lay-bys are so narrow that the buffeting of passing vehicles will wake me up. So on I drive, feeling drowsier with every minute, longing to shut my eyes but unable to, until I decide to cut my losses and go home where I might at least be able to grab a few minutes parked outside the house.
The question now is whether to leave the engine running so that the vibrations keep them asleep enabling me to get a longer snooze or do the sensible thing and switch it off. If I leave it running there’s a remote chance that some of the exhaust fumes will find their way into the car, the worst-case scenario being asphyxiation. If I switch it off the sudden absence of vibration will probably wake them up. A look at the trees indicates a light wind blowing towards the front of the car which means that the exhaust fumes will be dispersed away from the rear, posing no danger. Decision made. The engine stays running. Straight away I enter a deep head lolling sleep from which I never want to wake.
Within what feels like seconds, but is in fact half an hour, I am jerked suddenly awake by a thumping on window. Outside the anxious face of the postman is staring in. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Um, yes. We were just having a snooze.’ The children start to stir in the back of the car.
‘I just thought I’d check. Engine running and that.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t think..’
‘Well I did look for the hose.’
A man and two children, all slumped forward, in a car with the engine running. He’s joking now, but for a moment he wondered if it was a family suicide.
‘You’re not a banker, are you?’ he adds with a grin.
The question now is whether to leave the engine running so that the vibrations keep them asleep enabling me to get a longer snooze or do the sensible thing and switch it off. If I leave it running there’s a remote chance that some of the exhaust fumes will find their way into the car, the worst-case scenario being asphyxiation. If I switch it off the sudden absence of vibration will probably wake them up. A look at the trees indicates a light wind blowing towards the front of the car which means that the exhaust fumes will be dispersed away from the rear, posing no danger. Decision made. The engine stays running. Straight away I enter a deep head lolling sleep from which I never want to wake.
Within what feels like seconds, but is in fact half an hour, I am jerked suddenly awake by a thumping on window. Outside the anxious face of the postman is staring in. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Um, yes. We were just having a snooze.’ The children start to stir in the back of the car.
‘I just thought I’d check. Engine running and that.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t think..’
‘Well I did look for the hose.’
A man and two children, all slumped forward, in a car with the engine running. He’s joking now, but for a moment he wondered if it was a family suicide.
‘You’re not a banker, are you?’ he adds with a grin.
Fatigue
Monday is my Bobby day but when you’ve been playing catch-up on a film edit that’s badly behind schedule for most of the weekend you start the week pretty tired, so the thought of looking after my six month old son and his four year old sister for a day is exhausting. On top of my age, the fatigue is made worse by a year of short and broken nights, last night no different, when I was woken first by Bobby's cries and capitulated as usual to bringing him into our bed and then, just as I was managing to blot out his snuffles on Lu’s breast and drift off to sleep, Grace climbed in prising open a space between us that shunted me to the edge of the mattress where I clung for an hour, worrying about overdrafts and the distance between us, until finally forced to bail out to the spare bed in Bobby’s room where I snatched a final hour before jerking awake to the sweet tinkle of 6.00am phone alarms that usher in the day, every day.
The thing about childcare, as if I didn’t know it by now, is how utterly exhausting it is. During the next two hours, for example, I will settle Grace in front of C-Beebies for half an hour having capitulated to her demands for a bowl of Golden Nuggets on the sofa in the living room rather than in the kitchen where crumbs don’t matter; I’ll make her packed lunch for nursery having forgotten to buy ham; I’ll change Bobby’s shitty nappy and wake Anna who’ll be grumpily drowsy from watching Casualty too late; I’ll take a cup of tea up to Lu and give Bobby breakfast knowing that the pears are too hard; I’ll rouse Anna again and as Lu showers and stretches, grab toast for myself, feed cat, before the usual set-to with Grace over the wrong tights, a confrontation that escalates when I switch off the telly; I’ll shout at Anna for yet again losing the wallet containing her lunch card and bus pass, which means instigating a panicky last minute search with a heavy baby on my arm, that turns up a range of lost combs and phone chargers but no pass; I’ll reluctantly lend Anna £2 for lunch and bundle her crossly out of the front door before pecking Lu goodbye as she heads off, late again, for another day working with the dying in Birmingham; by which time it’ll be time to get Bobby and Grace into the car and set off for the nursery, three miles away, where I’ll leave Grace for the morning and start wondering when I might be able to squeeze in a snooze.
Childcare is hard work, harder even than work-work - which can feel like a holiday by comparison. Years ago we sat round in groups and analysed this. What was childcare we argued, courtesy Engels ‘Origin of the Family’, other than the production of labour-power for tomorrow’s work-force? And who did it? Women of course, whose mothering role was a natural extension of the wifely role that ensured her husband left for work each morning rested, sexually satisfied, and well-fed. And what was to be done about this? Men were to do their fair share, that’s what. Men who could afford to, that is, and who were sufficiently in control of their working hours to cut down and spend more time at home. This usually meant middle class men in unconventional working situations, in short, men like me. Which partially explains why, four decades later, I’m leaving the three labourer’s cottages knocked into one that is now our home and heading off through the village to the nursery in Chipping Norton with two of my five children in the back and mixed feelings about the day of childcare ahead.
The thing about childcare, as if I didn’t know it by now, is how utterly exhausting it is. During the next two hours, for example, I will settle Grace in front of C-Beebies for half an hour having capitulated to her demands for a bowl of Golden Nuggets on the sofa in the living room rather than in the kitchen where crumbs don’t matter; I’ll make her packed lunch for nursery having forgotten to buy ham; I’ll change Bobby’s shitty nappy and wake Anna who’ll be grumpily drowsy from watching Casualty too late; I’ll take a cup of tea up to Lu and give Bobby breakfast knowing that the pears are too hard; I’ll rouse Anna again and as Lu showers and stretches, grab toast for myself, feed cat, before the usual set-to with Grace over the wrong tights, a confrontation that escalates when I switch off the telly; I’ll shout at Anna for yet again losing the wallet containing her lunch card and bus pass, which means instigating a panicky last minute search with a heavy baby on my arm, that turns up a range of lost combs and phone chargers but no pass; I’ll reluctantly lend Anna £2 for lunch and bundle her crossly out of the front door before pecking Lu goodbye as she heads off, late again, for another day working with the dying in Birmingham; by which time it’ll be time to get Bobby and Grace into the car and set off for the nursery, three miles away, where I’ll leave Grace for the morning and start wondering when I might be able to squeeze in a snooze.
Childcare is hard work, harder even than work-work - which can feel like a holiday by comparison. Years ago we sat round in groups and analysed this. What was childcare we argued, courtesy Engels ‘Origin of the Family’, other than the production of labour-power for tomorrow’s work-force? And who did it? Women of course, whose mothering role was a natural extension of the wifely role that ensured her husband left for work each morning rested, sexually satisfied, and well-fed. And what was to be done about this? Men were to do their fair share, that’s what. Men who could afford to, that is, and who were sufficiently in control of their working hours to cut down and spend more time at home. This usually meant middle class men in unconventional working situations, in short, men like me. Which partially explains why, four decades later, I’m leaving the three labourer’s cottages knocked into one that is now our home and heading off through the village to the nursery in Chipping Norton with two of my five children in the back and mixed feelings about the day of childcare ahead.
Why Five Washing Machines?
Because I have five children, the first born in 1972 and the last (definitely) in 2008 - and each child has used up one machine - a little under in fact since they last about eight years. This is a blog about fatherhood through four decades - forty years of looking after young children - from the communes of the early 70s, to nuclear convention, then implosion, to nuclear happiness -= how things have changed and how stayed the same.
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