{Woolly Thinking}[19th February 1989]

[Redbook6:94-95)][19890219:1218]{Woolly Thinking}[19th February 1989]

19890219.1218

On 16^th January, [W] started manufacturing knitwear for sale. But the real point of it is this: I have always felt, when she said that she should take a job, that it should be me: because we both hate working in paid employment for others. But one day – the weekend before, it may have been – the stress of being got at by two small and much-loved children became too much. Then I suggested she should take a job simply to get away: but quickly we modified this plan. Now [W] works every weekday for six to seven hours in the Old Farmhouse, one of our outbuildings, and I look after the children; at four p.m. she comes in and takes over, and I start my work.

This system,* initiated not to make money but out of love, has had all sorts of excellent consequences:

• [W] looks and feels much better and has a better relationship with the children: she is genuinely happy doing this.
• The children see both of us equally and learn to be a little less dependent on Mum (they haven’t objected at all).
• I feel that I am doing my share, and therefore work much better during my own time.
• I am learning patience and self-sacrifice of an intimate kind which is common practice among a huge number of women, but of which the male equivalent now I suppose is the patient self-sacrifice in employment in order to support one’s family: which seems to be less of a sacrifice (and less of a motive) for the majority of men than for the minority.
• We’ve even sold some jerseys!

*{Sadly, in the end, financial pressures and social complications (selling to friends) undermined [W]’s confidence and the work petered out….}

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