One of the things that I was really looking forwards to in swapping my 24/7 career for freelancing and housewifery was having a bit more time to myself. Time to do the sorts of things that once upon a time I used to enjoy doing but have lacked the energy and opportunity in recent years. Less salary for more freedom. It would be perfectly possible for me to have this. Except for one thing. Guilt.
After almost ten years of the rat race I am brainwashed into an extreme work ethic. It matters not a jot whether or not there is work to be done, if I am not slaving away I feel I should be. I feel guilty when I dash into town to catch a hasty coffee with my mother. As though I must justify to my hard commuting Other Half that I too spent my day in an onerous skivvying equal to the office hell that he was stuck in. Not that he cares. As long as I don’t try to bully him into doing after hours dusting, how I spend my day is entirely up to me. After all I moved back to the UK, giving up a good career in the process, solely for the old fashioned reason of being with him. He thinks that me taking some time to sort out what I want to do in the longer term – and all the messing around in the interim whilst I work it out – entirely reasonable.
Other people’s expectations add to the guilt-load. “So what are you doing now?” is a standard question from well meaning friends and former colleagues. I sense “Spending my days surfing the internet and drinking coffee” is not an acceptable answer – never mind that this may be an accurate description of what I know some of them do all day at work. I mumble something about freelancing and avoid admitting that I am taking some time out.
Nor is simply being a housewife any longer a respectable profession for anyone not married to a footballer. If you choose not to be a celebrity – which since Big Brother is obviously an option for anyone who wants to be – then an amazing success is the least that you should achieve. I try to convince myself that this success uber alles attitude is a recent American import and to generate enough snobbishness to reject such a dubious foreign idea. But I think its probably perfectly British, remembering as I do my old school reports damning what I understand now to be ‘deferred successes’ as ‘could try harder’. So guilt intrudes each time I fail to produce a perfectly-organic-whipped-up-in-an-instant-whilst-the-kitchen-remained sparkling-and-myself-brightly-witty-and-erudite-meal. It’s enough to make me reach for the Prozac.
So this week instead I’m kicking off the pinny and taking a holiday. Not the kind where you discover some charming little part of Europe your friends have never heard of and which you bore them about for ages. Just that the bathroom will not be cleaned and cat hair will accumulate. I shall only do the minimum necessary to prevent Salmonella invading the kitchen. And I am going to try doing all the things that normally induce guilt. Sleep late. Read trash and watch junk TV whilst drinking as much coffee as is humanly possible. And my OH will be ecstatic that dinner will have all the taste and nutritional value of fish and chips as collected from the chippy by one happily Prozac free housewife.
May 24, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Being one of the few in my course who allows herself the guilty pleasure of studying without working part-time, I echo very many of the feelings you describe here. And no end in sight in the nearest future.
A wonderful, witty and oh-so-true-true-to-life post.
July 5, 2006 at 2:46 pm
[...] I’ve mentioned elsewhere the difficulty in explaining to well-meaning friends and colleagues that you just want to downsize yourself. That I don’t measure success in terms of unpaid overtime, stress and the inability to say no to any unreasonable request your employer may make of you. So deliberately moving from a what might be described as moderate career success to a deadend job gives me much to ponder over in finding referees. [...]