A female neighbor tiptoed over, all pitying smiles, to show me, the hapless man, how to use the laundry room dryer. I’d been living in the building for six years, washing clothes once a week, which means I’d worked that dryer over 300 times. I am a spin-drying genius. “Thank you so much,” I smiled at her, swallowing back the words, “and you’re a sexist.”
Would I have preferred her to know who I am — a househusband, a homeboy, the man of the housekeeping? Or would I have found that emasculating?
My wife and I made a deal 12 years ago. I would leave my office job to pursue my dream of getting a novel published, taking on freelance work (I compile crosswords) while writing fiction. But I would be earning less than before. In return, I would look after the house.
I really didn’t care what anyone thought of me. I wanted to write. And if househusbandry was the cost, then so be it.
There’s a “joke,” prevalent in male culture, with many variations. A guy standing on the 10th tee, perhaps, will say to his buddies, “The wife’s out clothes-shopping.” Everyone winces. Someone will say, “That’s like my marriage. We’re a team. I earn the money, she spends it.”
It’s a poor joke, but there is something I like about it. The guys telling it are accepting their wives’ right to spend money they haven’t made directly, but have actually earned because they support their men while looking after the house and kids.
When you reverse this situation, what happens to these tacit understandings? In our relationship, it went like this: While my wife was able to drop a thousand dollars at Bloomingdale’s, I felt guilty about spending money on clothes. Is there a couple in the world in which the man buys Armani while his wife thrifts?
Meanwhile, my wife’s career was taking off, but I still couldn’t find a publisher for my novel. She was ascending the ranks of journalism (she’s now an editor at The Post), and as my earnings were dropping, hers were climbing.
Eventually my wife, who had been incredibly supportive for a very long time, started to feel the strain. She wanted me to find some real work, despite the fact we didn’t need the extra money. We had a discussion in which she seemed unable to comprehend that looking after the house had both a lifestyle value and real financial worth. As far as I was concerned, I was working. Every day I wrote and kept house for at least eight hours. Every night my wife came home to a hot meal and a clean apartment. All I asked of her was to open the wine. And I thought this was fair. She was working stressful hours, so when she came home, I wanted her to relax. But if I were to get a job, not only would my writing suffer, my wife would have to do more housework or we’d have to pay a maid. We’d also need to pay a dog walker. We’d eat out more, order in more, pay for laundry . . .
Also, I found it hard to make my wife understand that every day I wrote, I was potentially making money, we just wouldn’t know it until sometime in the future.
And then that future arrived. I received the best phone call of my life. My novel, “Black Chalk,” had received a great offer from an excellent publishing house. Many of the pressure points in our relationship vanished overnight. But if my publishing contract hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, what would have happened?
Well, I probably would have taken a “real” job. But I think the quality of our lifestyle would have declined. And I would have resented that. But these are new and tricky paths to negotiate. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the 21st century will be the Women’s Century. Men will have to adjust to women taking more and more of the best-paid, important jobs (which is a truly good thing — men have been ruining the planet for long enough). But women will also have to make adjustments. They will have to learn a new way to value the men in their lives.
And then, in the laundry rooms of NYC, I’ll be on hand to show hapless women how to work the machines. Meanwhile, on the 10th tee there’ll be new jokes. “We’re a team. She brings home the bacon. I fry it up.”
“Black Chalk” ($17.95, Harvill Secker/Random House) is out now. Read the opening chapter, or download it here.