Imagine this is not a punishment and not a particularly bad day.
This is simply your normal life now.
You are the stay-at-home parent.
I am the corporate employee.
We have children, a household and all the ordinary responsibilities we actually had.
You will live this day again tomorrow, and the day after that.
For twenty years.
6:00β7:30 β Your day has already started
You wake when the children need you.
You get them dressed, fed and ready. You find whatever has disappeared overnight. You deal with arguments, spills, missing clothing, school or kindergarten requirements and whatever else needs doing.
You also begin thinking about everything that has to happen today: meals, laundry, cleaning, shopping, appointments, paperwork, school, kindergarten, childrenβs needs and the endless small things required to keep a household functioning.
I get myself ready for work. Maybe I spent an extra few minutes in the shower because I have a hot date before work. Maybe I will finally nail that new intern who has been making eyes at me.
My job is important.
At approximately 7:30, I leave.
7:30β16:30 β I am at work. You are responsible for everything else.
I have entered the adult world.
I have colleagues. Conversations. Professional relationships. Lunch. Intellectual stimulation. Recognition. A career. Money. Adults who know me independently of being somebodyβs spouse or parent.
And you know none of them except maybe by name in passing while I am boasting about my adventures or raging about my disappointments when things do not go my way.
You have the house and children.
If something needs cleaning, you clean it.
If something needs washing, you wash it.
If somebody needs feeding, you feed them.
If something runs out, you are expected to replenish it.
If something needs organising, you organise it.
If there is a problem with school or kindergarten, you deal with it.
If a child is sick, it becomes your problem.
If you are sick, the children and household remain your problem.
If something happens that you donβt know how to handle, you figure out how to handle it.
I am working. I am the pillar of our existence. You just care for my spawn.
You wouldnβt want to interfere with my career.
And because you become extremely competent at doing all of this through necessity, I increasingly experience your competence as evidence that you donβt really need my help.
And even if you do, I truly couldnβt care less.
16:30 β I come home
My workday is finished.
Yours isnβt.
I return to my castle and my family.
You have spent the previous nine hours keeping our lives functioning. There are still children, food, dishes, laundry, mess, preparation for tomorrow and everything else that doesnβt disappear merely because I have arrived home.
But I have been at work all day.
I am tired.
I naturally expect some time to myself.
17:00β18:00 β Dinner
You have thought about dinner.
You have made dinner.
You have accommodated everyoneβs needs and preferences.
We eat.
If Iβm dissatisfied with something, I am free to express that dissatisfaction.
The fact that you performed the labour does not make me responsible for appreciating it.
Afterward there are dishes and a kitchen to deal with.
Those things are not naturally my responsibility merely because I also ate.
18:00β20:00 β My evening
Now I can relax.
I can sit at my computer. Watch something. Pursue my interests. Communicate with other people. Drink. Disappear into whatever has my attention.
You continue parenting.
Children still need things. The house still needs things. Tomorrow still needs preparing.
If you ask me for help, you are asking me to surrender some of my leisure time. Which I might do but not without consequence. What you take from me will be taken from you and the children threefold.
That makes the help discretionary.
Your labour, meanwhile, remains compulsory.
20:00β21:30 β Bedtime
The children need to go to bed.
This is your job.
Teeth, clothes, arguments, stories, drinks, forgotten things, reassurance, children who wonβt settle, whatever tonight happens to containβyou handle it.
I do not regard bedtime as something we automatically do together simply because we created these children together.
I am available to myself.
You are available to everyone.
21:30β22:30 β Finish the day
The children being in bed does not mean your work is finished.
There is whatever remains from today and whatever needs preparing for tomorrow.
Perhaps this is when you finally do something you wanted to do earlier.
Perhaps youβre exhausted.
Perhaps you want my company.
Whether you receive my attention depends substantially upon whether I feel like giving it.
I have already had an entire day containing adults, work, movement outside the home and an identity independent of you.
If you are lonely after spending your day isolated inside the life we created together, your loneliness does not automatically create an obligation for me.
If I wanted to spend time with you, I would put you in my calendar.
22:30β00:00 β My time continues
I remain free to do what interests me.
Perhaps Iβm on the computer. Perhaps Iβm watching television. Perhaps Iβm drinking. Perhaps Iβm communicating with someone else. Perhaps Iβm simply ignoring you.
You may be sitting beside me.
That doesnβt necessarily mean Iβm present with you.
If you want emotional intimacy, conversation, affection or reassurance, you cannot assume I will provide it simply because youβre my husband.
And somewhere underneath all of this is another fact:
I have considerably more freedom than you do.
I can leave the house because I have somewhere legitimate to be.
I have work.
I have money.
I have colleagues.
I have sexual access to multiple people.
I have access to the outside world.
I can travel for work, attend dinners and cultivate relationships that exist completely independently of you.
And if I decide I want still more freedom, I may experience you and the children as the reason I cannot have it.
Around midnight β I close my eyes
My day is over.
I worked approximately nine hours outside the home and then largely decided for myself how much of the remaining evening belonged to the family.
Your day began before I left.
It continued while I was gone.
It continued after I returned.
It continued through dinner.
It continued through bedtime.
It continued until everything that had to be done was sufficiently done.
Tomorrow morning, we start again.
Now imagine that whenever you become exhausted, lonely, overwhelmed, sick, frightened, angry or desperate for help, I donβt primarily ask:
βWhat do you need?β
I ask, implicitly or explicitly:
βWhy canβt you handle this?β
Imagine becoming exceptionally capable because there is no reliable alternativeβand then watching me use your capability as evidence that my contribution isnβt necessary.
Imagine me enjoying the freedom your labour creates while simultaneously resenting you because I believe marriage and children prevent me from having even more freedom.
Imagine watching me receive care when I am ill while your illness has to fit around my work.
Imagine discovering that the person whose life you have spent maintaining has also been keeping parts of their life hidden from you.
Imagine that when you finally begin breaking under the weight of it, I experience your distress as another unpleasant thing happening to me.
And then donβt imagine doing this for a week.
Donβt imagine doing it for a month.
Donβt even imagine doing it for a year.
Imagine this becoming the architecture of your adult life.
You donβt know there is an endpoint.
There is no countdown.
You simply wake up every morning and live it again.
For twenty years.
Then answer the original question:
What would twenty years of being treated exactly as you treated me actually do to you?
