Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband Read Free Page A

started them off badly.
It was my fault, I knew it, but I find it impossible to
hide my mood from them. Perhaps I should be more
professional, and not take my problems to 'work', but
they should realise that Daddy is human as well, even
if not a particularly brilliant one. Later, partly out of
guilt, but more because I actually wanted to, I gave
them both some huge cuddles on the sofa, and order
was restored.
    My whole life is stretching in front of me, and from
here it looks like something Daisy would have painted
had she been willing – a bloody mess, a meaningless
bunch of squiggles and splodges that add up to very
little, but something which other people must be
polite about. I'll be able to see it in my friends' eyes,
the same look that I give Daisy and Peter when I
admire their artwork. And there'll be the same words
as well – the over enthusiastic 'well dones' and 'good
for yous'. But the big difference between the children
and me is that they're proud of what they do. I just
pretend to be.
    Oh God. This is all getting self-pitying and revolting.
Dinner at Victoria's tomorrow night – there had better
not be any rich people there.
    Sunday 13 January
    Dinner at Victoria's was so much better than I expected.
So so much better. In fact, potentially life-changing. I
must do my best not to get too excited. But I can't help
it, and I doubt anybody would be able to keep calm in
my circumstances. I've gone from the equivalent of nul points to the cusp of Eurovision greatness in just a few
days, and if this thing pays off, boy will it pay off.
    Anyway, to begin at the beginning. The assembled
looked pretty much as I had feared – absurd facial hair,
clothes too young for the bodies therein – but there was
one of them towards whom I immediately gravitated.
Despite having those standard 'I'm alternative, me'
rectangular glasses, and an inexcusable ponytail (I
really thought ponytails had been collectively shorn in
about 1997), he looked a little more bright-eyed and
less stoned than the rest of Victoria's friends.
    It turned out he was called Dom Simons, and he was
a TV producer. (I should have guessed.) Normally, I
have little time for people in the media. Most of them
are full of crap, and think they know exactly how the
world works with their glib categorisations and zeitgeisty
spiel, and sure enough, Dom seemed no exception.
Also, like most media people, he believed that his voice
was the only one worth listening to, and he spent the
first ten minutes telling me all about himself. Still, he
was entertaining enough, and beneath the self-puffery
there seemed to beat the heart of a genuinely
intelligent and interesting bloke.
    Eventually, he asked me what I did. I'm always
tempted to lie at this point, because saying 'I'm a househusband'
sounds so wet. In fact, I've practised saying it
so many times, I feel like an actor who's been asked to
play James Bond, and is hung up on how to say, 'The
name's Bond, James Bond.' I've tried saying it in a sort
of macho way, but that just sounds pathetic. On this
occasion, I just kind of blurted out:
    'ActuallyI'mahousehusband.'
    'What was that?'
    'A househusband. You know, I stay at home and look
after the children.'
    Dom's eyes bulged roundly behind his rectangular
frames.
    'Wow,' he said. 'That's awesome.'
    'Awesome? Well, if you think nappies are awesome,
think again.'
    Dom's glasses slipped down his nose a little. He
looked genuinely 100 per cent surprised.
    'How . . . but how . . . how did it happen? I mean did
you choose to do this? Or what?'
    'Well it's quite simple. I got sacked. And then my wife
decided that she would go back to work, because her
job was more interesting, and she thought in these days
of sexual equality there was no reason why she
shouldn't be the breadwinner.'
    I was aware, even as I was saying all this, that I had
said it a thousand times before.
    Another wow from Dominic, and then: 'So what did
you do before then?'
    This is getting increasingly common. When