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Murphy, Austin - How Tough Could It Be?
Tue, Jul. 6th, 2004 02:58 pmThe author, a sportswriter for Sports Illustrator, decided one day that he was away from home too much, so he and his wife agreed to an experiment -- he'd take over his wife's job for six months while she tried to revive her career.
I don't know. While the book was sort of funny at times, the author mainly just annoyed me with his self-congratulatory tone. The entire book was a vacillation between, wow, it's really hard being a housewife and people should appreciate them more, and wow, look at me, I'm doing such a good job. His wife Laura is generally not in the book much at all, except for times when she drops in and constantly pricks his bubble by reminding him of things that he isn't doing right. And while I can see why he'd be annoyed, most of my sympathy is with Laura.
He sort of gets a feel as to what being a stay-at-home parent is like, but as his wife said, he's still just playing at it... after six months is over, he knows he can have his career back; whereas his wife, who has done this for ten years or so, is stuck with a future of ten more years of it.
And there was his whole spiel on how he's changed and can now see minor household tasks that have to be done, like the overflowing garbage, etc., but I sort of had my doubts as to how long that would last. That seems to be the only real change that the experiment has had, and you certainly don't see him going out and volunteering to do something like that again, or wondering why it's Laura who stays at home all the time instead of him.
Generally I spent the book feeling like I wanted to kick the author.
I don't know. While the book was sort of funny at times, the author mainly just annoyed me with his self-congratulatory tone. The entire book was a vacillation between, wow, it's really hard being a housewife and people should appreciate them more, and wow, look at me, I'm doing such a good job. His wife Laura is generally not in the book much at all, except for times when she drops in and constantly pricks his bubble by reminding him of things that he isn't doing right. And while I can see why he'd be annoyed, most of my sympathy is with Laura.
He sort of gets a feel as to what being a stay-at-home parent is like, but as his wife said, he's still just playing at it... after six months is over, he knows he can have his career back; whereas his wife, who has done this for ten years or so, is stuck with a future of ten more years of it.
And there was his whole spiel on how he's changed and can now see minor household tasks that have to be done, like the overflowing garbage, etc., but I sort of had my doubts as to how long that would last. That seems to be the only real change that the experiment has had, and you certainly don't see him going out and volunteering to do something like that again, or wondering why it's Laura who stays at home all the time instead of him.
Generally I spent the book feeling like I wanted to kick the author.