Motherload

I found this absolutely brilliant potted history of marriage today, instead of writing my book on parenting... Ten key moments in the history of marriage What I love about this piece is that it is so specific about each era of marriage. In 10 simple steps, it shows the exact evolution from chattel to love match across nearly 2000 years of the institution, via the different edicts and statutes that first accommodated, then enshrined, social change. My sense of history is not nearly specific enough, because I stopped studying history at FOURTEEN. This is because, in my lovely, proper girls' school, we had to choose between history and geography at O level. Woe betide anyone who thought it might possibly be useful to go on studying both — gosh, it might take you over the decreed number of subjects ! Meanwhile the parallel boys' school merrily put its gilded youth in for French and maths early, got them on to O/A level, and let them do as many O levels as they enjoyed. Ah! The dif...

When I was younger, the phone was a constant companion and source of solace, a lot like eating fistfuls of Lovehearts or Refreshers. I could dial any time of day or night, and willing friends would be at the other end, ready to drop what they were doing to listen to my many woes, empathize, give advice (which I would promptly ignore), and enjoy or endure the high drama of my inner life. My phone bills were probably my biggest expense: I saw them as a painful necessity of life alone. Friendship was the highest state of being: to be connected with another who could understand me meant, literally, the world. I had a lot of friends — it's probably just as well, given what I'm describing. My friends came from distinct groups, parts and times of my life. Sometimes different sets of friends co-existed. I was different people in each of these groups. Sometimes the groups strung out like a pasta necklace over time, knots of friends at different junctures. Some of these groups have fade...

Last night I had an argument. Among many other things, my husband and I discussed what we each wanted in our lives that we don't already have. I said repeatedly that I had what I wanted, and that the happiness of the children came first. He accused me of being dishonest about my real needs and wants, which were to keep writing and publish. He said that he thought I would be a better mother if I were a happier mother, satisfying more of my career aims. I pointed out that I would be doing this, were it not necessary to bring in an income. This meant failing my ideals on two counts: not being there for the children, and not being there to write. Three counts: I really hate it when the house gets messy. I explained that this was a conflict which I had to live with, but maintained that I care more about the children's development and happiness than my own ambition. He said that if all there was to look forward to was living with one's conflicts, then what was the point of tryin...

I've just finished two books that in equal and opposite ways have left their mark. One is Singled Out, by Virginia Nicholson, the other Can Any Mother Help Me ? They are both social histories, aimed at exposing the state of marriage and womanhood in the first half of the twentieth century (now ripe for memorialization). Both books take unimpeachably admirable subjects as their themes: Singled Out looks at the 'Surplus Women', the some two million women left behind when all the young men died in France and Belgium in the First World War. Can Any Mother Help Me? looks at what is known as a 'correspondence magazine', a pre-email round robin between invited members, in which each adds articles dealing with subjects close to their hearts (children, husbands, work, illness, loss and so forth). From the outset then, we are prepared for a great deal of Fortitude, Dignified Suffering, and Achievement Despite (a) Housework, (b) Lack Of Housework. I did enjoy both books, an...