Pushing the Kids Out of the House

It is the most stressful time of day: the final four minutes I spend trying to get my boys out of the house so we can walk to school and be there before the bell. I make it stressful, deliberately, because otherwise we would never get anywhere. The boys have no instinct for time yet. They don't notice the seconds rushing past them, they never glance in agitation at the clock to check if they're on schedule, so I must badger and cajole, urging them to finish their breakfast, clean their teeth, put their shoes on. All the time I am trying to remember how to make a packed lunch (something I seem to forget in my sleep every night) whilst getting myself dressed and ready.

This morning these four minutes end up being nearer ten, which is tiresome - partly because it raises the chances of us being late (we are never late, and there's another five minutes of contingency after that, but I never dare admit this to myself lest I am tempted to use them), but mainly because, having laboured to create a sense of urgency with which to propel my kids from the house, I don't have many higher gears left. If something goes wrong now, I only have two or three shades of exasperation and anger at my disposal before I have to go nuclear.

And something is going wrong. My eldest, I know, is looking for something and not finding it. I can tell because instead of stuffing his lunch box in his bag and putting his coat on, he is stood there in the corner of my eye, waving his arms and going red in the face as he makes a strained growling noise. In short, he is copying what I do when my keys evaporate, or my phone somehow inexplicably isn't in my pocket. It's one of those countless instances when I see, plainly and clearly, that I have ruined him by being his father.

[Now, don't panic - this isn't something I agonise about. Luckily, I realised very early on that this was my job. Once you accept that, as Larkin put it, "They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do. / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you." then some of the stress of parenting dissipates. Since everyone is a mess of some kind or another, to be a good parent is simply to screw up your children in the most well-intentioned and loving way you can.]

"What have you lost?" I don't ask this nicely, supportively. We are Late For School and so I am Cross. Also, he is Not Looking. He is huffing and waiting for the Thing to reveal itself, unable to see what he has in his hands. The futility of this as a non-process, a waste of time we don't have, moves me closer to actual rather than manufactured anger. I push in front of him and begin rifling through paper and firing off questions to discover what the Thing is, where it is supposed to be, when he last had it. His answers, vague and often contradictory, push me over the top into wide-eyed frustration.

As I start an increasingly well-worn tirade against disorganisation, my youngest son turns up and he isn't ready either.

"Where's your coat?" I snap. Despite the lateness (we should have left already), he can't leave without it - it's the coldest day of the winter so far.

"Well," he says, "I think I must have left it at school."

And this is when I lose it.

[Because I front-load my stress into these few minutes, the rest of the day is relatively easy-going. When I go and collect my kids I am relaxed and calm. The conversation my youngest and I had yesterday went like this:

Me: Hey how're you doing? How was your day?
Him: Fine.
Me: What did you do?
Him: Nothing.
Me: Have you got all your stuff?
Him: (spotting his lunch box at the last minute) Yup!
Me: How about your coat?
Him: Yep, it's in my bag.
Me: You sure?
Him: Yes, I'm sure, Dad.
Me: Good!

And I let it go at that, because I know they have to learn to be responsible and, hey, he says he has it - I have to show I trust him, right?]

"What do you mean you left it at school! You told me you had it in your bag! I asked you 'Have you got everything? Have you got your coat?' and you said 'Yes Dad it's in my bag!'"

"Sorry," he says, but as always, the regret is only that he is being shouted at, which I find especially infuriating; if nothing else, they should have learnt to fake contrition. But now I have gone nuclear, there isn't anywhere else to go, and so I can only savagely roll my eyes and fetch his other thing-which-is-sort-of-a-coat-and-will-do-this-once and wrestle him into it and then push them both outside, reaching back at the last possible moment, like Indiana Jones, to whisk my keys off of the table before the door closes.

And so we leave for school, seven minutes later than I would like, five minutes later than we normally do, and we will eventually arrive with at least five minutes to spare. My manufactured White Rabbit impression has exploded into real anger, unnecessarily so given that a) it's not actually that cold after all and my youngest's coat will be in his classroom and b) if the missing piece of paper isn't in my oldest's bag (and it almost certainly is) then it is, after all, only a form that he can fill in afresh in two ticks.

But now I am trapped inside the crossness and so the lecture continues as we pace along the street in the winter sunshine. I feel I have to make them take responsibility, to get them to be organised and efficient. I start to say that I know what it's like to get caught out, but I can't have that conversation right now. Because really, of course, this is only partly to do with them and still quite a lot to do with me, and hypocrisy is the official language of parenting.

I was very badly organised at school. Being terribly lazy too only compounded the problem, but the worst thing was being able to get away with it so often. Although we did still get in terrible trouble occasionally, it seemed worth it overall: not having to work hard all the time was consolation for being hauled horribly over the coals every now and again. I say we, because my friends had much the same attitude. As we got older it all got harder; the stress of being caught out worsened, the deadlines slipped further, the risks got higher. At GCSE we would write our Biology homework in the class immediately before it had to be handed in. We would have meetings with the fearsome History teacher on the progress of our A-Level coursework where we looked him straight in the eye and lied about having done any work at all. For Eng. Lit. we were supposed to have translated The Miller's Tale into modern English over the Summer so that we could go around the class in turn, reading out chunks from our own versions. The game here was Chaucerian Roulette, trying to predict whether your turn would come up during the next lesson, and maybe, if you miscalculated, trying furtively to peek ahead and scribble something down on the sly. By the time I was at university, I was trying to bluff my way through nerve-wracking one-on-one tutorials on, say, Bleak House or Ulysses where I'd only read the first chapter. I'm still not sure how I got through my final year, but somehow, despite my best efforts, I just about held it together, which is another way of saying I'm grateful for the degree I got, rather than bitter about what I might have achieved if I had actually, you know, done any work.

All these years after the fact, these begin to sound like exploits in my head, and a lost piece of paper and a temporarily mislaid coat feels like small beer - both reasons why I can't reminisce at the boys whilst I am cross with them for being disorganised. But really I don't want them to end up the same way. I don't want them to be like me. I 'd much rather, in this respect, they were more like their mother, who is brilliantly efficient. (When I first reached for an adjective to put in there, all I had were 'über' and 'ruthlessly', which just goes to show my prejudice. The same bias would have me described as 'heroically slapdash', so there, that's how far from the path of reason I have wandered.) Even if I say she's brilliantly efficient, I'm actually underselling her because, to me, it is more like she has super-powers: judgement, foresight, clarity of thought and word, and many more, some of which are, to be honest, beyond my comprehension. All I know is, she can always find the thing in the fridge that I can't see for toffee.

As we dart through the school gate, hopelessly on time (on my return journey I'll pass many, many children who are going to be actually, properly tardy), my oldest takes a breath to steel himself. Words leap from his mouth, like an ejecting pilot.

"DadI'msorryyouneedtosignmyagendaIforgottoaskyoulastnight," he says, and this is more of the same. His Agenda is a diary the school gives him, a daily planner in which he is supposed to make a note of what homework he has to do and what homework he has done. His teacher asks that a parent initial this every day to check the kids are on top of things. After some previous lapses I have made it clear that I expect him to remember to ask me to sign it, not the other way around, and that he should be doing this in the evening once he has finished his homework rather than just as we are trying to get out of the door the next morning.

He breathes out, and glances at me sideways, genuinely nervous. But I surprise both of us by laughing. At some point during the walk to school, in the middle of my angry rant, he had remembered about his Agenda. How it must have sat in his stomach as he waited and wondered how much crosser I would get. And then the realisation that he had no choice but to come clean. I laugh because I can see he felt he had nothing else to do but throw himself on the grenade and hope for the best, or worst. It's no less admirable for being an act of desperation. Having been lucky in the past, I know what should happen next: sometimes, instead of an explosion there's a giddy absolution as the problem is suddenly magicked away.

That's another bit of my job. It's all very well lecturing on personal responsibility, letting them struggle so they can claw their own way out of trouble, nagging at them so they get their work done and teaching them to submit to the tyranny of the clock - it might even be necessary - but it's not any fun. Much nicer when I get to fix things, when I get presented with problems I can solve, instantly, with my magic parenting super-powers. That is how things used to work all the time. When the boys were much smaller, my powers (in their eyes at least) were greater and the problems were mainly to do with poo, or puréed vegetables, or wooden trains. In any case, back then pretty much everything could be fixed with a cuddle, or a nap, or, perhaps, in extremis, a biscuit. They're nearly teenagers now, and teaching them to fend for themselves is suddenly much more of a priority. The problems are murkier and our relationship is more complicated, constantly transitional. Very gradually, power and responsibilities are going to have to be handed over.

Ultimately, I'm hoping we will all strike a balance where they can have happy, successful lives and still know that we are here for them, just in case. But it's sobering to realise that, in trying to push them out of the house in the morning, I'm also pushing them out towards an adult world where they are in charge of themselves.

"Yes, of course I'll sign your agenda," I say happily. "Is it in your bag?"

"Yes," he says. And it was.

Invisible Men Shouldn't Obscure Invisible Women

I am a stay-at-home dad. Or possibly, I'm a house-husband? I don't really know what to call what I do because none of these labels seem to fit. I hate the moment in a conversation where I have to try and describe who I am, normally to a near total stranger. Sometimes I go with housewife - it gets a smile more often that not and it doesn't seem any less untrue. I have to say something because I am always asked 'what do you do?' whenever I meet someone. I get asked this because I am a man and the expectation is that I have at least a job, if not a career. Women, I have noticed, are asked a subtly different question: 'do you work?'

I've just read this article in the paper about British fathers who stay at home to perform childcare duties whilst their partner works full-time. I'm still trying to understand what I think about it. It seems to be suggesting that this is something that is happening under the radar, a phenomenon which requires attention by policy-makers to avoid men becoming 'ghettoised'.

Adrienne Burgess, head of research at the Fatherhood Institute, feels there is little understanding in government about family life and that more men could be househusbands. "What's changing is not the fathers but the mothers," she said. "More mothers at the time of their first child are earning as much or more than their partner. So couples make rational economic decisions. By the time the child is 18 months old, three quarters of mothers are back in paid work and those who aren't tend to be the most poor or disadvantaged who don't have the options because of the cost of childcare. The fully fledged stay-at-home parent is a dying breed. [...] Motherhood is still in that flux and, while men are seeing being the primary parent as an option, their voices aren't heard. They are ghettoised. What holds a lot of men back is a lack of confidence and a culture that is sometimes hostile and excluding of men."

And then there was this:

[A man] has started working again part-time now that his children are at school, but remains the primary carer. "Leaving work to pick the kids up still gets comments from other blokes. There is the sense that I'm not putting in a full day. It can be hard going at times."

I have nothing but respect for men - and women - that juggle working and parenting, either individually, or as a couple, or whatever. But the subtext of this article seems to be 'Gosh, these men have it tough'. And this is something I take issue with.

Before I was a stay-at-home dad, I worked part-time. Thanks to flexible working legislation brought in by the Labour government I was able to halve the hours I worked when my wife's maternity leave finished. She went back to the job that she loved and I was delighted to get out of the office at lunchtime every day and pick up my son from nursery. I loved it. My immediate boss was brilliant. He backed my application and continued to support me throughout the remaining five years I worked with that company. But that didn't mean that it was easy.

Upper levels of management (both male and female) seemed bewildered at my choice. I was made to feel that I had somehow offended them by suggesting that I would rather have less money and more time changing nappies. Once, at a Christmas office dinner, I mentioned my wife's career to a member of senior management. There was a frosty silence, the implication being apparently that if my wife had a career then I had abandoned my own. And, beyond my immediate team, colleagues were perplexed that I wasn't around in the afternoons. I was made to feel that I wasn't pulling my weight and eventually work started to bypass me entirely and I ended up with almost nothing to do, as if I couldn't be trusted.

That could have gone on indefinitely I suppose. Luckily my wife's career meant we ended up moving abroad and here I have no work visa. It seemed a good fit - the children, still small, would benefit from having me at home full time whilst we got used to our new surroundings. Furthermore, my wife would have to travel quite a bit and I would be able to be the permanent presence for them. That was four years ago.

I can't say there aren't downsides to this arrangement, and the article mentions some of these, but I can't support the idea that the experience of being a male stay-at-home parent is somehow worse or harder or uniquely challenging when compared to that of a mother.

When I was working, there were many female colleagues who had to leave early to pick up their kids, or who worked part-time. They suffered the same criticisms and aspersions that I did - the only difference is that both they and their employers expected it to be this way. The women knew they were expected to work harder; the company probably felt, having given these women jobs, that they were a necessary evil. Being a man, it never occurred to me that I would be treated differently once I went part-time. But the anxieties, the pressure to be in two places at once that I felt were just the same.

And it's the same for stay-at-home parents. Speaking to other mums it's clear that we both have the same problems. The article talks about men resenting their wives' freedom, feeling their 'ego turn to mush'. You think this doesn't happen to women? This has been most women's lives in the developed world for generations. We're all swirling above the plughole of an existential crisis, trying to cope with the threat that our identity as individuals could be entirely eroded, that our domestic role could subsume us. The sense I get from these conversations is that I, somehow, have the right to complain about this because I am a man. Like me, these women also get uprooted from their friends and support networks when their husbands relocate them. They feel the ludicrous pressure to keep up appearances at the school gate. They get defined and identified by, even measured against, their children, their spouses, or their homes. And all this is worse where economic factors force someone to be an involuntary stay-at home parent. 

I have it easier than them. I have a suspicion that I get away with murder because people's expectations of me as a stay-at-home parent are not those they would have for a woman. I think I feel less guilty about marking out time for myself, about saying 'screw the housework today'. If I ever went back to work (please God no) I'd get paid more money than them.

This isn't a criticism against working parents. I know they have to, you know, work really hard and that they suffer tremendous guilt at not being with their kids as much as they would like. I am not, either, saying that I have a hard time. Now both kids are at school, this is (on the whole) a cushy number, let's be clear. And, yes, this can be a disorientating and demoralising experience for men who have been brought up to think that self-worth can only come from a rewarding career. But do these men need special help? Do we need targeted government policies to help us? No. Social policy should be aimed at helping families, whatever the permutation of workers and stay-at-homers, men and women, adults and children. And it is still women that have the hardest time of it. They face the greatest expectations, required by society to be perfect mothers as much as productive workers, whilst continuing to be undervalued thanks to the gender pay gap.

It's great that more men are occupying this traditionally female role. I hope the trend continues because I think it will help improve legislation and make things easier for parents, men and women, working and stay-at-home. But whilst this social change is unfolding around us it would be a crushing disservice to women, to our wives and mothers and grandmothers, to claim that men have a tougher time of it just because this is, for us, uncharted territory.      

The Fog of Childhood

I have very clear memories of being five or six, if clear is the right word: the distinct impression I am left with of that time is one of experiencing reality through a fog, as if watching and listening from behind frosted glass. I can see now that I was incapable of completely engaging in the business of being myself in the world - as if conscious control of my own life was something I had not yet mastered.

This is something I need to bear in mind when I am exasperated by my children. Aged five and seven, they are always amazed when I know something.

"How do you know that!" they cry and I can only answer, "By being alive for thirty years!" I guess they'll get there one day, by which time maybe I'll have learnt to cut them some slack.

What prompted this thought? The long walk home from school. A time for them to pelt me with insane questions, or to terrify me with glimpses into the workings of their still-forming minds. Here is a near-as-dammit transcript of today's conversation.

Son 1: Dad, why is Valentine’s Day called Valentine’s Day?

Me: Well Valentine was probably a man who lived in Roman times who was killed for being a Christian.

Son 1: Why was he killed for being a Christian?

Me: Because -

Son 2: I’m a Crispian.

Me: Are you?

Son 2: Well, yeah because at Pre-K there was a kind of church thing and we sang songs and there was a lady who went on about Jesus ALL the time.

Son 1: So, why-

Me: (Suddenly alert) Shh 1 (To 2) That doesn’t mean you’re a Christian. Being a Christian means you believe in Jesus.

Son 2: Yeah, I believe in Jesus.

Me: You have to believe a specific thing.

Son 2: What?

Me: You have to believe that Jesus was the son of God and that he was killed so that everyone could have the chance to go to Heaven when they died. And you have to believe that when he died he came back to life.

Son 2: Seriously?

Me: Yes.

Son 2: Well, I’m not believing that. That’s silly.

Me: Well if you don’t believe it you’re not a Christian.

Son 2: Jesus died on a hill right? I do know that’s true because I saw a painting of it.

Me: You saw a painting? A painting isn’t proof.

Son 2: Yes it is.

Me: What if I painted a picture of you with an elephant on your head? Would that make it true?

Son 2: (attempting to balance his school bag on his head) What if there was an elephant on my head?

Me: That would be lovely but I’m saying that a painting isn’t proof that some thing’s true.

Son 2: (wistfully) It was awesome when Jesus died.

Me: Wow.

Son 1: So why was Valentine executed by the Romans?

Me: Because being Christian was against the law. The Roman government had its own religion.

Son 2: Well, I’m sure glad I’m not a Crispian! I don’t want to be electrocuted.

Me: No, executed. And it’s not illegal any more. Not here anyway. Maybe it’s best if you don’t make any decisions about this for a few more years eh?

Time And (my) Relatives’ Dimensions in Space

A French Decimal Clock. I mean, really...

Ooh, the arbitrary nature of how we measure time. My eldest gives a little shout of triumph whenever he notices that the clock on the microwave happens to agree with that on the oven. This occurs more often than he thinks, as they are only out of synch by about twenty seconds, but this is obviously enough of a disparity to irk him. The poor boy has a sensitivity for such things, since even before we moved to America. One October, a couple of years ago, I tried to explain to him about how we were putting the clocks back. Whatever he thought we were doing, the idea terrified him so much that the colour drained from his face and he almost burst into tears. Time to him then was still something immutable and not to be jiggered about with.

But, boy, have we been jiggering about with it. Living six hours around the world is weird, as I have often remarked. Basically, I miss a lot of the cricket, never hear the Today programme and ‘Sailing By’ is now what Radio 4 plays at a quarter to seven to tell me it’s time to have a drink. We jigger about with time when we go home too, like we did this December for my sister’s wedding. The flight there was nothing more than a fractured nap and being in Britain for a week was mildly unsettling as my body clock drifted, failing to grip hold of GMT. Finally the flight back becomes an interminable afternoon of steady sunlight as the day stretches to make up time.

The source of all this confusion is the discrepancy between how we think we measure time, the tinny numbers and numerals on our wrists and screens, and how we instinctively measure it: the length of shadows, a quality of the light, the slow dance of sun and moon. If these sidereal rhythms weren’t already subordinate to our clocks and calendars, then today’s date would have utterly no significance whatsoever. But as it is, we have invented numbers to count the hours and then subdivided and then subdivided, again and again, into hypothetical fractions of seconds. We have named the days and the months and spent generations arguing about them. Perplexed as to why it doesn’t quite work we have to drop in leap days and seconds, all the while doggedly counting the years forwards from something that borders on mythology.

If this sounds like a grump, then I must earnestly say that it isn’t. I find all this fascinating and am delighted that days like this exist. If nothing else, they should make us see that Time, as we understand it in terms of TV schedules and decades, is another lie that we take for granted. Like the roads, like plumbing and wiring, it is another layer of infrastructure that we have invented. And, like all those things, it is delivered locally: 2010 has been going for about eight hours now in the Pacific and it’ll be nearly breakfast time in Britain by the time both hands point to 12 here in Houston.

And what am I going to do if I hear Big Ben at 6pm this evening? However arbitrary these counts and notches are, we submit to them utterly so that even our moods and emotions are manipulated by these imaginary numbers: a new year offers catharsis, a chance to think in longer terms. My status for today was going to be: “Hey you don’t call me at 6pm to wish me a Happy New Year and I won’t call you at 6am, deal?”. But in truth I will be torn – although arbitrary, these temporal divisions hold water because of mutual consensus and the collected belief of one’s friends and family count for a lot. So whilst you are all bonging and clinking and Auld Lang Syning in the UK, I might well be allowing the kids to experience some actual time travel.

Happy New Year!

A Father's Dilemma

Tempted as I am to file another note on life in Houston and the aftermath of Ike, I thought you might all have had your fill of tales of dangerous driving, an over-reliance on gadgetry, the reckless destruction of property and mordant British wit. So I'm going to discuss James Bond with you instead.

I may not have mentioned this before, but I am a bit of a Bond obsessive. As a very small boy I watched the films on telly, as a young teenager I read the novels and I derived a lot of pleasure from both. And yes, I have also gone waaay overboard, reading non-Fleming continuation novels, buying soundtrack CDs and toy DB5s and playing Bond-related video games.

What you might have missed is that this passion has cooled considerably in recent years. I am not the utterly ardent Bond-fan I once was. There are plenty of reasons behind this, including the varying quality of recent movies and the return of 'Doctor Who' - I only have so much sad-obsessive-geekiness to go round you know.

But all this is skirting the issue - the real reason is that my reconsideration of Bond has coincided with becoming a father. To put it bluntly, it is harder to combine a love of all things Bond with the responsibilities of parenting. And just as we were undergoing this change, the world lurched in another direction: Laura's first bout of maternity leave overlapped with the invasion of Iraq. There was nothing for her to do but watch television and nothing else for her to watch apart from rolling news footage of irresponsible violence. In a world where suspected terrorists (i.e. innocent bystanders) could be shot dead on the Tube, the casual fantasy violence of Bond's world became more unpalatable and, crucially, less justifiable.

When my parents had let me watch Connery or Moore save the world there had been no doubt that these adventures were suitable viewing. Even I understood the basic premise of the Cold War that shaped them. When William saw a television trailer for 'Casino Royale', his heartfelt, confused wail was "Who is that BAD MAN and why is he doing those BAD THINGS?!" Well, quite. Son, let me explain why it's okay to go around shooting people...

This what reading the Guardian gets you. Okay, that was then, this is now. Why am I suddenly thinking about 007 again? Well, it is a big Bond year. Sebastian Faulks' 'Devil May Care' was published in the spring (don't bother) and Charlie Higson's excellent 'Young Bond' series has just concluded with the release of the fifth book: 'By Royal Command'. Pre-publicity for 'Quantum of Solace' is about to go into overdrive with barely a month to go before the new movie hits cinemas. And finally, I am about to be reunited with all my books and DVDs that have been sluggishly cruising the Atlantic. I am getting the itch again.

And I am going to have to face up to the fact that there is little reason to 'shelter' the boys from 007 much longer. They don't have toy guns, but they make their own from Lego and there's no way to stop that. The boys next door (8 and 6) have real guns. Well, this is Texas. William, at least, is nearly six and certainly older than I was when I watched my first film. He's growing up fast too - there's a reason 'Return of the Jedi' is his favourite Star Wars episode and it is that gold bikini. Bond is already beginning to bleed into William's consciousness - the name, like that of Indiana Jones, is known even if it is also a mystery. Finally, let's not be coy: James Bond is, like a slice of cucumber in a glass of Pimm's, very cool and very British. My boys are growing up in the heartland of American machismo - plenty of kids in the playground can be Felix Leiter to their 007.

My dilemma has changed then. I'm not worried about William trying to rationalise the sex, or the sexism, or the violence, or the not-so-subtle racism (had you noticed all the baddies were foreigners?) That's all stuff he's going to have to come to terms with at some point or other - at least if I'm in the room with him, I can provide the necessary context and reassurances.

No, my new dilemma, having sort of made my mind up, is: where the hell do I start? I said at the top that I wanted to discuss Bond with you and I was serious - I'd like thoughts and suggestions. Twenty-one films over forty-five years - this knocks the Star Wars argument (I,II, III, IV, V, VI? or IV, V, VI, I, II, III? or just IV, V, VI?) out of the water.

Should I pick a film that is lighter in tone? 'Moonraker' perhaps or 'The Spy Who Loved Me'? Or should I go for all out brilliance - 'Goldfinger', obviously - although I would have to cringe through the scene in the barn: attitudes to sexual consent have improved a little since 1964 haven't they? Or maybe I should try and show him something fairly recent, something that takes place in a world he vaguely recognises? 'The World is Not Enough' or possibly something as old as 'The Living Daylights' might do, but again the world has changed a little: Soviet troops oppressing Afghanistan? Bond aiding the Mujahideen? Hmmm..

Another strategy would be to start with 'Dr. No' and work forwards. But, well... that sounds a little drastic. I'm fairly sure I know which ones to avoid off the bat: 'OHMSS', 'Licence to Kill' and 'Casino Royale' are too dark for now. As for 'Die Another Day', well there's no reason to admit that exists is there?

So, fellow aficionados, fellow parents, any ideas?