I don’t know how she does it

Today I had a special day out. I went with my friend Kim to the Cambridge college where we were both undergraduates, to listen to two very different lectures and have lunch. Newnham is an all women’s college, and can be a bit like a grown up girls’ boarding school when a lot of us get together. I don’t have the happiest memories of my time there – nothing to do with the university or the college – so I am grateful now for the opportunity to create some new memories.

This post is just a quick one about the morning’s lecture, which was by Alison Pearson, who wrote a best-selling novel called I don’t know how she does it, about 10 years ago. The novel is all about a very successful London working mother and all the difficulties she has combining a high-flying career with motherhood. There are some very funny moments and any mother will identify with the challenges, heartache and feelings of never-good-enough-in-either-role. I read the book when it first came out and enjoyed it, and then earlier this year watched the film of the same name, set in New York and starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Brosnan. The film was good too, but the translation to American culture meant that it didn’t quite touch me in the same way as the novel had.

Ms Pearson’s lecture today was about making choices and whether we could, indeed, have it all as women. She was very entertaining and of course any woman who can describe meeting both Tom Hanks and Pierce Brosnan is bound to have the attention of the room. Not to mention Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton! Following the lecture, there was a discussion which focussed largely on childcare and roles, and concluded with several of the women present discussing how, when their husbands took care of the children, the house would be in a mess and they would have to come home and sort it all out. All of this was somewhat irrelevant to me as, having been a lone parent for the last 10 years, it has been more of a struggle to survive than a dilemma as to whether to employ a nanny.

As the comments lingered on housework, however, I felt more and more uncomfortable. I often come home to find the house in a mess, and that’s because I live with a 16 year-old boy and a large dog. I often neglect tidying up because there are a lot of things higher up my list of priorities, and the only person here who cares in the slightest about the state of the house is me! If I’m tired, however, or there is paperwork to do or a meal to cook, I don’t stress about it. I just do what has to be done so that we are fed and don’t fall over if there is a power cut in the night, and then put the rest right out of my mind. It doesn’t haunt me if my kitchen is messy as long as the dishwasher has been switched on and I’ll be able to make breakfast in the morning. There are so many things more important than a pristine house: having enough sleep, a happy, walked dog, a good relationship with my son.

Listening to my fellow audience members discussing the shortcomings of their husbands I could draw only one conclusion: I must be a man!