Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband Read Free Page B

I tell
most blokes that I'm a househusband, they find it so
beyond their ken that they then ask what I used to do.
    'I was a management consultant.'
    'OK,' said Dom, manfully struggling to work out what
to say next. 'And, um, how did you find that?' he asked.
    'To tell the truth I enjoyed it.'
    'D'you miss it?'
    I chewed this over along with a stale crisp. Victoria's
crisps are always stale. Why is that?
    'I miss the office life,' I said. 'I don't miss the politics.
I suppose what I miss most of all is making some sort of
professional impact. You know, with management
consultancy, you're actually going to a firm, and within
a few weeks you've made them more profitable, and
you've really made a huge difference.'
    'I thought you lot just sacked people.'
    I waggled my finger in a vaguely schoolmasterly way.
    'Aha! A common misconception,' I replied playfully,
although in truth I was a little narked. It's so unfair that
everybody thinks that management consultants just sack
people in order to make companies look profitable.
When we went to some big insurance firm down in
Poole, I remember recommending that they should
actually employ more people. I told all this to Dom, who
seemed to take it on board. Well, he sorted of nodded
a bit, before asking me whether I still kept my hand in.
    'I do a bit of consultancy from time to time,' I said
sheepishly. 'Good for staying in the loop, that sort of
thing.'
    More absent-minded nodding. I could tell that I was
beginning to bore him. (This is something else that
seems to be happening more often. Either I really have
got more boring, or I have always been boring, and am
now far more sensitive.) My next conversational gambit
was therefore born out of desperation.
    'But you know what?' I asked. 'I think I'd make the
subject of a great TV programme.'
    This time Dom's eyes popped open so widely that
they actually went beyond his frames, making it look as
though he had two Tube logos stuck on his face.
    'You?' he spluttered on his mulled wine.
    'Why not? You know, a real-life documentary of a
househusband. The trials and tribulations of an
ordinary bloke stuck in a woman's job.'
    More bulging. It was hardly surprising – the idea was
not exactly well thought out, and had only been voiced
in order to make conversation.
    'Well, it's, um, very interesting ,' said Dom.
    'You think so?'
    'Yesssss,' he said convincingly. 'But I think it needs
another element, you know, a celebrity or something.'
    A celebrity. Why did it always have to be a celebrity?
What right do celebrities have to lecture us? The other
night I caught the end of some female comedian
presenting a programme on the British Empire. What
did she know about it? Precisely nothing. About as
much as my old history tutor knows about situation
comedy. In fact, probably less than that. And then, in
the midst of my seethe about celebs, a brainwave.
    'Why not a programme about me trying to bring up
my children according to the techniques of management
consultancy?'
    'What?'
    Excitedly, I told Dom all about the Holden Childcare
Programme, and how I had attempted to raise Daisy
and Peter using it.
    'Did it work?' Dom asked.
    'Er, no,' I admitted sheepishly. 'So perhaps the idea
isn't really a flyer after all.'
    'Well, that doesn't technically matter,' said Dom.
    'What doesn't?'
    'Whether it worked or not.'
    'Why not?'
    'Well, truth should never get in the way of good
factual entertainment.'
    Now it was the turn of my eyes to bulge.
    'I thought that only applied to travel writing.'
    Dom laughed a little.
    'You know all those makeover programmes?'
    'Sort of.'
    (I didn't want to admit that I knew them a little too
well. They're on when I cook dinner.)
    'The ones in which they make a new you, or a new
house, all that crap.'
    'Yes, I know.'
    'Well, they're a load of shit.'
    'Really?'
    'Yup, completely made up.'
    'How can you be so sure?' I asked.
    'I make the bloody things.'
    My turn to splutter on mulled wine.
    'Really?'
    'Yup.'
    Dom then gave me a