(Compiled from www.Socialevils.Org.Uk/the-decline-of-the-family.Html Text 11 city girl

(condensed)

Maggie knew, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t suppress the knowledge, that she was not content with her life as it was. Being merely a wife and mother were not enough to fulfil her. She missed her job, badly. She was torn between the desire to take up the reins of her career again and the need to be at home for her children. On no account did Terry want her to employ a child-minder. But, then, he didn’t have to give up his career. He wasn’t imprisoned within the four walls of the house with only the babies for company. Yet she knew that if she did go back to work she would worry about the twins. She wouldn’t be there to see their first tentative footsteps. Another woman would have that pleasure.

Her mother had always been there for Maggie and the boys. She was the first person whey saw when they came in from school, standing at the cooker preparing their dinner, ready to listen to all their excited chatter. How much she had taken her mother for granted. Had Nelsie ever got fed up cooking, cleaning, caring? Did Maggie have the right to deny her children the security of motherhood while she searched for fulfillment? Did they have the right to expect her to give up her own desires? What was fair? What was right? Maggie didn’t know and Terry was no help.

Maggie was a great cook. She was a creative person, and to her cooking was an art, but she liked to be notified that visitors were coming so she could spend time preparing a special meal with all the trimmings. She knew Terry never thought of things like that. Bringing someone home wasn’t such a big deal in his eyes. She knew her husband felt that it was up to her to take care of things on the home front just like his mother had. That’s what marriage was all about, in his opinion. All he wanted, and was it too much to ask, he inquired testily, when they were having an argument over his attitudes, was to come home after a hard day’s work, relax over a drink and have a tasty dinner. If a client came with him what difference did one more mouth make?

“What about what I want?” Maggie demanded. “Do you ever think about that?”

Terry was shocked. Hadn’t he given her a lovely home, didn’t she have her own cheque book, plenty of food on the table, time to come and go as she pleased while he slaved away to provide for her and the children? What more could she possibly want? He genuinely couldn’t understand her attitude. “If my mother had had a tenth of what you have, she would have thought she was in heaven. You know it’s no joke at work. The pressure is killing me. All you have to do is take care of the babies and get dinner. The rest of your time is your own,” he said indignantly.

“I am not your mother and these are the eighties you’re living in, Terry. I am your wife, not your housekeeper. And I have a life to deal too and, believe me, I have precious little time to myself,” Maggie told him furiously one evening after he complained when he came home with a friend and found her surrounded by talcs and nappies and his dinner not yet cooked.

(by Patricia Scanlan)