The See-Saw by Julia Hobsbawm

Author:Julia Hobsbawm [Hobsbawm, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782392453
Publisher: Atlantic Books

On the See-Saw: David

A charity programme head, David works from Monday to Thursday in London and goes home to Wales at the weekends to his wife, Anne, who is twenty-seven weeks pregnant, and their daughter, aged two.

We have just had a marital tiff because I broke one of the rules of our See-Saw: no logistical conversations in the evening. It started because I wanted the extra financial help to start now rather than after the birth of the new baby. My wife, worn out by a humid day with our two-year-old daughter, Beatrice, insisted that three weeks after the birth was fine, which was of no comfort. The fact that the argument was more about me, trying to assuage my guilt and frustration at being absent in Central London from Monday through Thursday at this stage of her pregnancy, is of less comfort still.

We’ve had this weekly split existence for eighteen months now and have been learning the rules of the road. When it works it can be fabulous, but it relies on vigilance in following our ‘rules’ and having sufficient back-up. During Anne’s current pregnancy there have been too many instances when we have been on very thin ice.

The pattern of our weeks and our ‘rules’ have evolved more through experience than design; it has often taken a Sunday-evening meltdown to prompt reflection and change. However, I attempt to make sense of my week by splitting it into four distinct areas framed by the Paddington–Cardiff train journey: relationship; family; work; and me.

Our Friday-night date à deux is a non-negotiable anchor. Most importantly, our 120 per cent trustworthy regular babysitter cuts us loose at 7.30 p.m. Anne puts on heels, we hold hands, walk to a local restaurant, and talk. I like reconnecting emotionally and physically with Anne before the differently magical, Saturday-morning patter of feet and the cry of ‘Daddy!’

From Monday to Thursday I have a heady freedom: I can work earlier or later; I can do evening networking without the tug of the bedtime story. I can see friends, catch up on sleep, swim, or meditate. In all of this I follow religiously a routine of morning and evening telephone calls to Anne. Also, I ensure that I do not make the mistake (as I often have) of packing my week in London to capacity so that I arrive in Wales spent at the weekend. I need to get home with medium to high energy so I can give Anne her ‘day off’ on the Saturday and do the night cover without becoming an irritable zombie.

I have taken a job where I can have ‘clean’ weekends: no work happens. This feels odd as well as vaguely decadent, and it is the first time this has happened in my professional life (probably due to my failure to purge my persistent Protestant work ethic). But it means that when I am with Anne and Beatrice, I am fully present. When we all lived under the same roof the whole week, I was physically there every evening but too often emotionally absent.

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