From one perspective, it can seem pathetic to have to concoct fantasies rather than to try to build a life in which daydreams can reliably become realities. But fantasies are often the best thing we can make of our multiple and contradictory wishes: they allow us to inhabit one reality without destroying the other. Fantasizing spares those we care about from the full irresponsibility and scary strangeness of our urges. It is, in its own way, an achievement, an emblem of civilization—and an act of kindness.
The imaginary incidents on the trawler and in the chat room aren’t an indication that Rabih and Kirsten have ceased to love one another. They are signs that they are so engaged in each other’s lives that they sometimes no longer have the inner freedom to make love without self-consciousness or an inhibiting sense of responsibility.
The Prestige of Laundry
They are a modern couple and therefore share tasks according to a complex arrangement. Rabih goes to work five days a week but comes home early on Friday afternoons to look after the children, which he is also responsible for doing on Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. Kirsten works Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays till two o’clock and on weekends is with the kids on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. He does Friday bathtime and prepares supper four nights a week. She buys the food and the household supplies, while he takes care of the trash, the car, and the garden.
It’s just after seven on a Thursday evening. Since this morning Rabih has attended four meetings, dealt with a failing tile supplier, cleared up (he hopes) a misconception about tax rebates, and sought to bring the new CFO on board with a scheme for a client conference which could have great implications for the third quarter (or, alternatively, could be a bit of a mess). He has had to stand in the aisle of a crowded commuter bus for half an hour each way and is now walking back from his stop in the rain. He is thinking about how great it will be finally to get home, pour himself a glass of wine, read the children a chapter of the Famous Five, kiss them good night, and sit down for a meal and some civilized conversation with his most sympathetic ally and friend, his spouse. He is at the end of his tether and inclined to feel (justifiably) sorry for himself.
Kirsten has meanwhile been home almost all day. After driving the children to school (there was an ugly fight in the car over a pencil case), she put away breakfast, made the beds, took three work-related calls (her colleagues seem to have a hard time remembering she’s not in the office on Thursdays or Fridays), cleaned two bathrooms, vacuumed the house, and sorted out everyone’s summer clothes. She arranged for a plumber to come and look at the taps, picked up the dry cleaning and delivered a chair to be reupholstered, booked a dental checkup for William, collected the children from school, prepared and fed them a (healthy) snack, cajoled them into doing their homework, got supper ready, ran a bath, and cleaned a set of ink stains off the living room floor. Now she is thinking how great it will be finally to have Rabih come home and take over so she can pour herself a glass of wine, read the children a chapter of the Famous Five, kiss them good night, and sit down for a meal and some civilized conversation with her most sympathetic ally and friend, her spouse. She is at the end of her tether and inclined to feel (justifiably) sorry for herself.
When they at last find themselves alone in bed reading, Kirsten doesn’t want to cause trouble, but there are a few things on her mind.
“Will you remember to iron the duvet covers tomorrow?” she asks without raising her eyes from her book.
His stomach twists. He strives for patience. “It’s Friday,” he points out. “I thought perhaps you could do that kind of thing on a Friday.”
Now she looks up. Her gaze is cold. “Gotcha, gotcha,” she says. “Domestic stuff: my job. Never mind. Sorry I asked.” Back to her book.
These grating, scratching encounters can be more exhausting than flat-out rage.
He thinks: I earn two-thirds of our income, possibly even more depending on how the total is calculated, but it seems I also do more than my fair share of everything else. I’m made to feel as though my work were solely something I was doing for me. In fact, it’s rarely satisfying and invariably stressful. I can’t be expected, on top of it all, to take on the duvets. I do my bit: I took the children swimming last weekend, and just now I loaded the dishwasher. Deep down, I want to be nurtured and protected. I’m furious.
And she thinks: Everyone seems to believe my two days at home are all about “relaxing” and that I’m lucky to have this time. But this family wouldn’t hold together for five minutes without all the things I get done in the background. Everything is my responsibility. I long to take a break, but whenever I bring up some chore I want to pass on, I’m made to feel I’m being unfair—so, in the end, it seems easier to be quiet. There’s something wrong with the lights again, and I will have to chase the electrician tomorrow. Deep down, I want to be nurtured and protected. I’m furious.
The modern expectation is that there will be equality in all things in the couple—which means, at heart, an equality of suffering. But calibrating grief to ensure an equal dosage is no easy task: misery is experienced subjectively, and there is always a temptation for each party to form a sincere yet competitive conviction that, in truth, his or her life really is more cursed—in ways that the partner seems uninclined to acknowledge or atone for. It takes a superhuman wisdom to avoid the consoling conclusion that one has the harder life.
Kirsten goes to work for enough hours of the week and earns enough money that she isn’t inclined to be overly grateful to Rabih just for his slightly greater salary. At the same time, Rabih has taken on enough tasks around the house, and has been left to fend for himself on a sufficient number of evenings, that he isn’t inclined to be overly grateful to Kirsten just for her greater efforts around the children. Both are engaged with a sufficient share of the other’s primary task not to be in any mood for unalloyed gratitude.
The difficulties of modern parents can in part be blamed on the way prestige is distributed. Couples are not only besieged by practical demands at every hour, they are also inclined to think of these demands as humiliating, banal, and meaningless, and are therefore likely to be averse to offering pity or praise to one another, or themselves, just for enduring them. The word prestige sounds wholly inappropriate when applied to the school run and the laundry because we have been perniciously trained to think of this quality as naturally belonging elsewhere, in high politics or scientific research, the movies or fashion. But, stripped to its essence, prestige merely refers to whatever is most noble and important in life.
We seem unwilling to allow for the possibility that the glory of our species may lie not only in the launching of satellites, the founding of companies, and the manufacturing of miraculously thin semiconductors but also in an ability—even if it is widely distributed among billions—to spoon yogurt into small mouths, find missing socks, clean toilets, deal with tantrums, and wipe congealed things off tables. Here, too, there are trials worthy not of condemnation or sarcastic ridicule but also of a degree of glamour, so that they may be endured with greater sympathy and fortitude.
Rabih and Kirsten are suffering partly because they have so seldom seen their struggles sympathetically reflected in the art they know, which instead tends to belittle, and to poke puerile fun at the sorts of troubles they face. They cannot admire their own valor in trying to teach a foreign language to a child who is squirming in impatient fury; in constantly buttoning coats and keeping track of hats; in decently maintaining a household of five rooms; in controlling and mastering moods of despair; and in helping to pull their modest but complicated domestic enterprise along with every new day. They will never be outwardly distinguished or earn large sums of money; they will die in obscurity and without the laurels of their community, and yet the good order and continuity of civilization nevertheless depend to some tiny but vital degree on their quiet, unnoticed labors.