Woman vs Men
A few days ago I overheard a conversation between a couple of our DGMs on the subject of a forthcoming 50th birthday party to which the Fat Bastard and I have been invited. Everyone's been invited. As is so often the case baby sitting cover is a preoccupation of anyone with younger off-spring and without in-built cover. One of the younger employees is a lovely Polish girl who has a baby perhaps 12-14 months old.
She'd been asked whether she and her husband would be coming to the party, to which she'd replied "Me!" [her English isn't too good yet].
"Your husband isn't coming?"
"Baby!"
"Can't you find a baby sitter?"
"Husband, baby!"
"What a shame you can't go out together!"
"Ha! Want to have Good time!!".
My thoughts? This is a girl with her head screwed on right, her life under control etc, etc.
I didn't think much about it until yesterday afternoon when the 'Maternity Leave' Supervisor burst into the office in tears because someone had said the wrong thing to her. She's still very post-baby big, pasty-faced and fraught. Through her tears she explained that 'he wouldn't stop crying' and her 8-week old son certainly was red-faced and grizzly.
That's what 8 week old babies do. They can't sit up, look you in the eye and say "Gosh, my tum's a bit uncomfortable, mum." They cry. In fact they cry when ever they've got something to say because that's all they can do (apart from process food and sleep).
And it is exhausting. When you've a mate to respond to, and a house to run and a life (and figure) to reclaim.
Everyone rallied round.
Scrawny Bint (well I'm told that's her nickname among the yoots we employ - she's the one who's shagging the GM) took the baby for a walk while the distressed mum was plied with water, tissues and words of comfort. Meantime I'm on the periphery, feeling very much like the 5th wheel, but increasingly uncomfortable.
She's a 24 year old first time mother, with nieces and nephews, not some dopey 16 year old. Eventually the blubbing subsides and through the sobs she admits to being unwell and tired. She's almost as flushed as her baby. The other women in the office foyer (rather cramped with four bodies, a baby and the pushchair) are in their forties and mothers of grown up children (with the exception of yours truly); They tell the poor thing the baby has wind.
Feeling under the weather physically, mentally or emotionally? Have a cuppa. Baby unhappy? It has wind.
Well doh! Its what you get when you bottle feed.
You need to bring up the wind, have you tried, they ask. Quite reasonably Post-natal Supervisor responds through her hands, with which she's holding her head that 'of course' she's winded him.
He's not a happy baby and she's not a happy mum. Thoughts of the coven turn to getting her through the evening. When's M (the daddy) home? Do you have to cook or have you got something prepared?
And then a little voice from the sidelines chimes in with "oh, but M does the cooking!".
M does the cooking. Well I'm stunned. And not for the last time. As I've indicated I'm a spectator rather than an active participant in all of this.
During a quiet moment once the baby's been taken off (again) by She who shall hereinafter be referred to as Scrawny Bint® ensues a conversation on the vexed question of the great Return To Work. And all I hear is "M*** will do what I want. I mean, M*** will let me do what I want."
As the words slipped from her lips I thought 'Freudian slip, my girl' (and I didn't do psychology so I'm using the expression in its loosest and 'lay-est' sense). And the conversation has haunted me ever since and I can't help but link the two conversations together in my mind.
Nothing the Fat Bastard ever did to me made me 'hate men'. In fact I've never got on in the company of women and feel much more comfortable in the far more direct environment of men. Plus in the company of men I usually get to avoid conversations around gynaecological 'issues' which is always a big plus.
For a long time I thought that we, that is to say the Fat Bastard and I, would have been a greater success - or less resounding failure, had I stood my ground more often and more firmly; while paradoxically fending off the criticism of his mother who to this day regards me as some kind of ball-breaking feminist freak. I didn't change my name when I married. So what? Neither did he.
For a long time I wished I was capable of being more assertive, stubborn, self-centred and dogmatic. I reasoned at one time that the explanation for him not being the husband I wanted, needed and expected was my failure to be sufficiently clear and firm in setting out what I wanted, needed and expected.
I think I was hearing in these conversations what I'd have had to be like to be 'sufficiently' clear and firm. All in all I'm rather glad I tried to negotiate and compromise.
I might not have a husband (in any meaningful sense), but I know I never treated anyone in the way my mother's generation fought so hard not to have women treated. It isn't a question of these two women expecting their men to 'know their place'. In a relationship between two people, both parties should 'know their place'. What seemed to come through was the lack of space afforded these men and the burden of expectation placed upon them by their respective spouses. The 'one-way street'.
It left me feeling very sad for the four people involved and their two babies.
She'd been asked whether she and her husband would be coming to the party, to which she'd replied "Me!" [her English isn't too good yet].
"Your husband isn't coming?"
"Baby!"
"Can't you find a baby sitter?"
"Husband, baby!"
"What a shame you can't go out together!"
"Ha! Want to have Good time!!".
My thoughts? This is a girl with her head screwed on right, her life under control etc, etc.
I didn't think much about it until yesterday afternoon when the 'Maternity Leave' Supervisor burst into the office in tears because someone had said the wrong thing to her. She's still very post-baby big, pasty-faced and fraught. Through her tears she explained that 'he wouldn't stop crying' and her 8-week old son certainly was red-faced and grizzly.
That's what 8 week old babies do. They can't sit up, look you in the eye and say "Gosh, my tum's a bit uncomfortable, mum." They cry. In fact they cry when ever they've got something to say because that's all they can do (apart from process food and sleep).
And it is exhausting. When you've a mate to respond to, and a house to run and a life (and figure) to reclaim.
Everyone rallied round.
Scrawny Bint (well I'm told that's her nickname among the yoots we employ - she's the one who's shagging the GM) took the baby for a walk while the distressed mum was plied with water, tissues and words of comfort. Meantime I'm on the periphery, feeling very much like the 5th wheel, but increasingly uncomfortable.
She's a 24 year old first time mother, with nieces and nephews, not some dopey 16 year old. Eventually the blubbing subsides and through the sobs she admits to being unwell and tired. She's almost as flushed as her baby. The other women in the office foyer (rather cramped with four bodies, a baby and the pushchair) are in their forties and mothers of grown up children (with the exception of yours truly); They tell the poor thing the baby has wind.
Feeling under the weather physically, mentally or emotionally? Have a cuppa. Baby unhappy? It has wind.
Well doh! Its what you get when you bottle feed.
You need to bring up the wind, have you tried, they ask. Quite reasonably Post-natal Supervisor responds through her hands, with which she's holding her head that 'of course' she's winded him.
He's not a happy baby and she's not a happy mum. Thoughts of the coven turn to getting her through the evening. When's M (the daddy) home? Do you have to cook or have you got something prepared?
And then a little voice from the sidelines chimes in with "oh, but M does the cooking!".
M does the cooking. Well I'm stunned. And not for the last time. As I've indicated I'm a spectator rather than an active participant in all of this.
During a quiet moment once the baby's been taken off (again) by She who shall hereinafter be referred to as Scrawny Bint® ensues a conversation on the vexed question of the great Return To Work. And all I hear is "M*** will do what I want. I mean, M*** will let me do what I want."
As the words slipped from her lips I thought 'Freudian slip, my girl' (and I didn't do psychology so I'm using the expression in its loosest and 'lay-est' sense). And the conversation has haunted me ever since and I can't help but link the two conversations together in my mind.
Nothing the Fat Bastard ever did to me made me 'hate men'. In fact I've never got on in the company of women and feel much more comfortable in the far more direct environment of men. Plus in the company of men I usually get to avoid conversations around gynaecological 'issues' which is always a big plus.
For a long time I thought that we, that is to say the Fat Bastard and I, would have been a greater success - or less resounding failure, had I stood my ground more often and more firmly; while paradoxically fending off the criticism of his mother who to this day regards me as some kind of ball-breaking feminist freak. I didn't change my name when I married. So what? Neither did he.
For a long time I wished I was capable of being more assertive, stubborn, self-centred and dogmatic. I reasoned at one time that the explanation for him not being the husband I wanted, needed and expected was my failure to be sufficiently clear and firm in setting out what I wanted, needed and expected.
I think I was hearing in these conversations what I'd have had to be like to be 'sufficiently' clear and firm. All in all I'm rather glad I tried to negotiate and compromise.
I might not have a husband (in any meaningful sense), but I know I never treated anyone in the way my mother's generation fought so hard not to have women treated. It isn't a question of these two women expecting their men to 'know their place'. In a relationship between two people, both parties should 'know their place'. What seemed to come through was the lack of space afforded these men and the burden of expectation placed upon them by their respective spouses. The 'one-way street'.
It left me feeling very sad for the four people involved and their two babies.
posted by Enyo @ 7:37 am
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