‘The lady is buying the magazine* so she can be a good wife!’
*Good House Keeping
Yes seriously, that happened to me last month on my way back from the hairdressers as I dropped into the shop to pick up some guilty pleasures for my much anticipated quiet Friday night in – a magazine, cheap chocolate and a fresh lemon for the gin. For the record, I don’t normally have my hair done just to stay in, but the wizard that is Charl, has limited availability, so a girl just has to take what she can when she can!
I’m not usually lost for words, but I just gaped at the audacious chap and smiled benignly at the child; it wasn’t his fault after all. The balding (sorry but he was) middle aged man was indulgently cuddling his young son who was about 2 years old (2nd or 3rd marriage, obvs) and I thought, god help us.
Who said gender profiling was on the way out? If this is what we are faced with in 2022, it would seem that nothing much has changed. Obviously by the time I’d paid for my goods and left the shop, I had all the smart answers to hand like ‘oh noooooooo, I don’t do housekeeping, I just like reading about it’ or ‘it’s not for me, it’s for my husband’ or my favourite ‘don’t kid yourself buster, I’m a bona fida single divorcee and I ain’t being no god damn cockamamie housewife for no one!’ Don’t ask me why the voice in my head changed to country and western Dolly Parton style, but it did 😉.
Rather than seething all the way home, it got me thinking: how long is it going to take for keeping house to become a non-sexist occupation? Should we remove the stereotyping and just let whoever is best at it, or who enjoys it more, do it without any gender expectation?
I know some people enjoy keeping house, some endure it and some loathe it. I think I fall in the middle ground although always enjoy it after it’s done. I’m lucky to afford a lovely lady who sorts out the house from top to bottom (including ironing) twice a month and I count on her as a friend whom I’d trust with everything. All I have to do then is cook (occasionally) and just waft a cloth here and there and empty the bins in between her much anticipated visits. But this hasn’t always been the case; before then I simply endured the housework, preferring the end result to the actuality of doing it. I’ve always been somewhat house proud so would rather endure the cleaning effort than go home to a dirty house. It probably stems from when we were growing up and we had the lovely Irish Cathy coming to help every week. Mum and Dad both worked full time so it made sense and ensured that we tidied our rooms every week as Cathy was there ‘to clean, not tidy up after you’! That phrase still makes me smile, and I hope my cleaner knows the lengths I go to ensure that she can clean when she gets here and not have to tidy up after me!
However, what if you are a rubbish housekeeper but have a partner who enjoys it, does it matter? Is it anyone’s business other than yours? What if you’re single like me and have no choice but to do it or outsource it? And why did the chap in the shop automatically assume I’m coupled up, with a bloke? Did I look the sort? What sort do I look like?
This prompted a long hard look in the mirror and yes, I’m broadly happy with what reflects back at me although, like most people, would ideally like to tweak a bit here and there and lose the proverbial few extra pounds, but on the whole, think I do OK. But still, what ‘sort’ do I look like?
I think most of my friends would say I look like a reasonably well put together and preserved mid-life middle Englander. My team at the office usually comment on my extensive wardrobe and matching accessories, so probably think I’m too indulgent. And most strangers assume I’m part of a couple, so when I say I’m single and proud, they usually mutter something inane either like, ‘don’t worry dear, he’s out there for you somewhere’, ‘or good for you, I’d be single if I could be’.
I guess when it boils down to it, we all look like ‘a sort’ and it’s up to the onlooker to determine what type of sort they think we are. As for us, if they happen to share what sort they think we are, we can respond appropriately or not, as the case may be. But I’d love for ‘sort’ typing to disappear or at least to include the ‘solo sort’ as an acceptable category of sorts!
So dear friends, I’d like to propose the movement for ‘the single sort status’. We will begin a movement to take over the world. Instead of the secret masonic handshake, we will just recognise a fellow solo sort by the look in the eye; the steely determination and sheer joy exuding from our every pore. We will be the envy of the nation and everyone will want to shake off their shackles and join us in single status happiness.
Ok, so maybe I’m getting a little carried away here but my point is to illustrate how the world expects people to be past their mid 20’s. Up until then, we are encouraged to grow up independently, travel the world, go to college or university and then meet someone suitable, settle down and get married. But this model seems to have failed so many people: many get divorced, with or without children, try again and either limp on in a lifeless marriage or divorce again and become a serial online dater. For those of us who’ve been through it, divorce is usually horrible and life changing, not just because of the paperwork, but for how you feel either initiating or receiving the process. Even if you have a simple divorce (I did mine online but had to wait 5 years to get his permission), divorce changes you in a way you cannot foresee and I don’t think there’s anyone on this earth who can call it a pleasant process, so why don’t we change the way we couple up?
Is it time to embrace the serial monogamy model? Where every relationship is expected to have a ‘consume by’ date. I’ve always said that I have changed so much since my 20’s, scarred by relationships, situations, illness and loss, that I’m a totally different person now. Even through my 30’s and 40’s I’ve changed again and again and as I hurtle towards my big 60, I know I’m changing again. Could anyone have possibly kept up with me or even liked or wanted to be with the ever changing chameleon?
I honestly believe that if I’d stayed married to Mr Collis (I was 28 at the time) we couldn’t have possibly changed at the same rate, so our relationship would have quite possibly been flawed and fractured and generally unhappy. It was a brief relationship and wrong from the start, but that’s a whole other story for another day. The point is, that we did what was expected, regardless of the warning signs. As luck would have it, children weren’t part of the deal, so uncoupling was reasonably straightforward, although painful. I really feel for those that don’t feel they can separate although I don’t believe in staying together for the sake of ….family, kids, the pets, the will, the reputation (delete as you see fit) is ever worth it. A permanently unhappy marriage is never worth hanging on for, ever.
Perhaps no one should be allowed to get married until they are at least 50? That up until then, there is an explicit expectation that you ‘borrow’ a relationship and when one of you chose to leave, you pack it up nicely, tie a ribbon around it and gift it to the next person as you move onto your next one too.
So here endeth today’s musings, all sparked by a thoughtless comment in a shop on a Friday night! What’s your view on the single status movement, will you join me?
With Love
Julia AKA Just Me.