Towards the end of January, I left my husband and children and went away for a month. I went to write a book, which I had been researching and thinking about since the end of 2009. I had been struggling to find a way to write regularly, and I was terribly frustrated.
Before I went, people were a mixture of incredulous, aghast and envious. ‘A month?’ was the usual uncensored reaction. And yet when my husband went away for the same period in November, no one batted an eyelid. Travelling to the other side of the world for a month to earn money is considered a ‘good thing’, if a man does it. My husband was a hero in all respects: for going to China to work, for suggesting I have a month away to match his, and for holding the fort while I was absent.
It didn't seem to make any difference that I was also going away to work too - that writing is my work. My favourite response came from a complete stranger in the form of a tweet: “A month away from your kids to write? Seriously?! I miss mine after a weekend! Quite selfish really!”
So why are people so shocked by a woman choosing to be apart from her children? The idea stubbornly persists, like a grass stain on trousers, that children belong to the mother. Mothers are always assumed to be the primary carers. Is it because babies come out of their bodies? Some would argue it is natural, but I'd argue it's cultural: a hangover from a patriarchy in which women were aligned with household goods as so many pieces of property. It's a prejudice that needs to be changed. Children belong to themselves, and men and women make them and raise them.
My month away was ‘me time’, but not in the way that consumerism has sold it back to us. I didn't need a bubble bath or a pedicure - why on earth would I want to spend the precious free minutes I do have trapped in an overheated salon with a total stranger buffing my toes? What I needed was time away from the domestic space to think. Once women become mothers, it is astonishingly simple to convince that they no longer need or deserve this kind of time; that they must keep all the domestic plates spinning, so that everyone around them can live full and meaningful lives.
Before I went, I would try to write every day - and every day, errands and chores would claim my attention. I found it absolutely impossible, whatever rituals and tricks I tried, to get anywhere. I just felt I couldn't sit down until everything - with the kids, the house - was taken care of. And it’s not that my husband doesn't pull his weight (he does), but it is in my head all the time, like limescale. Will the kids get to their after-school club? What's the GPs number? Where's the PE kit?
And - would you believe - my husband coped just fine. He had the kids’ timetable pinned to the fridge, made his meal plans, shopped for them, worked from home, did his best to get them to their after-school activities, and didn't worry about it when our son baulked. He made them do their homework, he read to them, he squabbled with them, and got frustrated - just like I do. By the end of the month he was telling me authoritatively that "the children are just doing too many activities".
I wrote over 50,000 words in 20 days. I didn't really take time off, so much as go away to use my time better, and come back finally relieved of what had been in my head for four years. I was incredibly lucky to have this time – a husband currently working from home, an opportunity seized. But the questions remain: why do we hear so rarely of mothers leaving the family to pursue - for however brief a time - their work, their passions, their dreams? Is it societal pressure? Unwilling partners? The limits we ourselves place on our own desires? Or a combination, perhaps, of all three?
In memory of my beautiful friend Jane Richardson, who died from Ovarian Cancer in February. Thank goodness for the ‘me time’ we had.
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Guest post: 'As a mother, why do I have to justify taking time for myself?'
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MumsnetGuestPosts · 26/03/2014 16:54
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