Allison Pearson - I Don't Know How She Does It

Bonds or equities? No problem. UK or Japan? Hell, only a fool would hesitate over that one.

Halfway through the meeting, Andrew McManus — Scots, rugger bugger, shoulders like a Chesterfield sofa — gives a self-important little cough and announces that he hopes all present will forgive him, but he has to slip away early because Catriona, his daughter, has this swimming gala and he promised her that Daddy would be there. Everyone around the table reacts as though this is the most normal thing in the world. The younger guys who think they may one day get around to having kids, but only when the Porsche Boxter comes complete with a nappy-changing shelf, don’t flinch. The other fathers bask in conspiratorial new-dad smugness. I see Momo, who is single and knows no better, mouth, “ Sweeeet. ” Even Celia Harmsworth composes her Wicked Queen features into an approximation of a smile and says, “Oh, how marvelous, Andrew! You’re so hands on!” as though McManus had singlehandedly driven the Dow up 150 points. (This is the same woman who, in December, tried to have me court-martialed following my trip to a school carol concert “during client time.”)

Observing that I am the only colleague not to join in the cooing approbation, Andrew shrugs helplessly and says, “You know how it is, Kate.” Slips into his jacket and out of the room.

Indeed, I do know how it is. Man annnounces he has to leave the office to be with his child for short recreational burst and is hailed as selfless doting paternal role model. Woman announces she has to leave the office to be with child who is on sickbed and is damned as disorganized, irresponsible, and Showing Insufficient Commitment. For father to parade himself as a Father is a sign of strength; for mother to out herself as a Mother is a sign of appalling vulnerability. Don’t you just love equal opportunities?

To: Debra Richardson

From: Kate Reddy

Just chaired meeting where fellow manager announced he had to leave to attend daughter’s swimming gala. Practically knighted on the spot for services to parenthood. If I tried that, Rod would have me executed and my dripping bloody head stuck on the ramparts of Bank of England as a warning to other women slackers.

It’s sooooo unfair. Am coming to conclusion that career-girl bollocks is one-generation-only trick. We are living proof that it can’t work, aren’t we?

Forget higher education. Think we should send our girls to catering college where they can learn to make decorative floral centerpieces and a delicious supper for two. Then they can marry a man who will pay for them to stay at home and have pedicures.

URGENT: Pls remind me what was drawback to that way of life again???

To: Kate Reddy

From: Debra Richardson

Once upon a time, in a land far away,

a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess

happened upon a frog as she sat

contemplating ecological issues

on the shores of an unpolluted pond

in a verdant meadow near her castle.

The frog hopped into the princess’s lap and said:

Sweet lady, I was once a handsome prince,

until an evil witch cast a spell on me.

One kiss from you, however,

and I will turn back into the dapper young prince that I am.

Then, my sweet, we can marry

and set up house in yon castle

where you can prepare my meals,

clean my clothes, bear my children,

and forever feel grateful and

happy doing so.

That night, dining on a repast of lightly sauteed frogs’ legs,

The princess chuckled to herself and thought:

I don’t fucking think so.

Men today can only be better fathers than their fathers. Simply by knowing how to change a nappy or figuring out which hole you stick the bottle in — these things mark them out as more capable parents than any previous generation. But women can only be worse mothers than our mothers, and this rankles because we are working so very very hard and we are doomed to fail.

At Edwin Morgan Forster, the desks of men with children are dense with photographs of their offspring. Before you get to the computer and the blotter, you have to negotiate a three-day-event course of family portraits: leather frames, mottled crocodile frames, double steel frames with a copper hinge, witty Perspex cubes. A missing tooth here, a soccer goal there; that skiing trip in February where Sophie wrapped her red scarf around Dad’s neck and they both turned to face the camera with Steinway smiles. A man is allowed to advertise the fact that he is a father; it’s a sign of strength, a sign he is a good provider. The women in the offices of EMF don’t tend to display pictures of their kids. The higher they go up the ladder, the fewer the photographs. If a man has pictures of kids on his desk, it enhances his humanity; if a woman has them it decreases hers. Why? Because he’s not supposed to be home with the children; she is.

I used to have a photo of Ben and Emily on my desk. Rich snapped it just after the baby had learned to sit up. Em was sitting behind, clutching him round the middle with fierce pride. He was bubbling up as though life was one big joke and he’d just heard the punch line for the first time. I kept the photo on my desk for a few weeks, but each time I caught the children looking at me I had the same thought: you are providing for them, but you are not bringing them up. So the picture’s in the drawer now.

Last year, I went to this lecture by an American chief executive at the London Business School. She said she was going to train her daughters up as geishas; the real future for women was as nurturers and men-pleasers. There was nervous laughter in the room: she was joking, wasn’t she? She was beautiful and she was incredibly smart and I don’t think she was joking.

All I knew was that I didn’t want my mother’s life. I didn’t need a role model to teach me that being dependent on some man was debilitating, maybe even dangerous. But will Emily really want my life? When she looks at her Mummy, who does she see? (If she ever sees her Mummy.) Back in the seventies, when they were fighting for women’s rights, what did they think equal opportunities meant: that women would be entitled to spend as little time with their kids as men do?

12:46 P.M.Chowzat! is the hi-tech cafeteria installed by EMF last year in the basement as part of its attempt to look less like a bank and more like a nightclub. The café is meant to have a funky postindustrial ambience, but the effect is a lot like an airport coffee lounge. I am still lightly stoned after the joint accepted in a moment of madness this morning. What could I be thinking of? As I was getting out of the car, Winston invited me to join him at a concert a fortnight on Sunday. Might find it not totally my scene, he said, the music was a bit overwhelming, but he thinks it would do me good. As the proud-fortress fund manager composed her polite but frosty refusal, I opened my mouth and out fell the word yes. Presumably, I now have a date at a rave with my new drug dealer. What the hell am I going to tell Richard?

As the weed wears off, I feel both nauseous and ravenous. Weigh up the rival merits of the Jumbo Blueberry Muffin and its dainty lo-cal sister, Lemon and Sesame Seed. Buy both. Am stuffing alternate fistfuls into my mouth when I look up and see familar brick-red features glowering down at me.

“Jesus, Katie. You’re not eating for two, are you? Got enough trouble in that department with Candy.”

Rod Task.

“Ygno.” I splutter, shooting blueberry bullets across the table.

Rod tells me he needs me to go to New York to do a pitch to some brokers on Wednesday. Wants me to give them “a little TLC.” This information followed by a grotesque wink.