When 20-somethings go neo-traditional...in reverse For the next few weeks, my significant other is working as a counselor at a camp for children with disabilities. He spends the days teaching kids— kids who too seldom have the opportunity to just be kids— how to play Texas Hold ‘Em, helps them dress and go to the bathroom, referees cake-baking contests and hockey games, and then plans the next days activities well into the wee morning hours. The man is a bloody saint. And how shall I reward him for his saintliness? Why, talk about him behind his back, of course! You see, at present “Sven” (ha! I wish!) doesn’t have access to the internet, which means that he will likely never read this blog. 
Before starting his current job, "Sven," still a student at the youthful-by-European-standards age of 25, was enjoying that glorious period of time perched between the end of the spring semester and the start of a summer job. For him, it was rightfully a time filled with seemingly infinite EUFA2008 football games, early-afternoon wake-up times, and mid-afternoon naps. I, on the other hand, was in a less-enviable place: squeezed between the time I had funding to do fascinating research, and the rapidly approaching time said funding ran out and results were demanded. I was in panic-mode, and it wasn’t pretty.
The ensuing week is what I naively imagine it must be like when you are the primary breadwinner (traditionally, a man) with a stay at home partner (traditionally, a woman): fantastic, unfair, and miserable— in that order. “This is fantastic!”Everyday, I would wake up to the alarm, slide out of bed— pretending to be careful, but secretly hoping he would wake up— and get ready for the working world. Never mind that the “working world” was Lola’s, an underwhelming café barely two blocks away, and that I didn’t have to be there at any particular time. I was going for his pity, and I was going for broke. “Sven,” kind soul that he is, bought into my act unconditionally. By the time I was out of the shower, he was up, drizzling walnuts and raisins on my yogurt, pouring me a glass of orange juice, and trying to busy himself quietly as I read my email and mindlessly ate the breakfast he made me— the breakfast I could have easily made myself.
There seemed to be no end to his kindness. He appeared downright pained that he couldn’t do my work for me. For lunch, he made me tasty chevre-tomatoe-whole-grain sandwiches, so I didn’t have to pay for an overpriced one at unimpressive Lola’s. He readily offered back-rubs and did my errands (like return a rain jacket I was thrilled with, until I realized it didn’t have a hood). He praised my work, and insisted that I shouldn’t feel badly for doing less of the practical things; after all, he was home with nothing to do. “This is bordering on indentured servitude…”Slowly, I let “Sven” take care of more and more things around the apartment. Eager to do the laundry? Great. Don’t mind taking care of the dishes…again? Fabulous. Then one day “Sven” called my cell phone, asking when I would be home for dinner. A quick, devious equation ran through my head: I could come home at 5:00, rummage through the root vegetables at the grocery store, help make dinner, and eat by 7:00. Or, I could return to the apartment at 6:45, just in time to put out the plates and silverware before sitting down to a warm, home-cooked meal. My work was “important”— “Sven” had said so himself— and I’m stressed, and he wouldn’t mind. Besides, he’s a much better cook. I’m practically a liability in the kitchen, everyone agrees.
It took all of the willpower and self-shaming entreaties I could muster to pack up my traveling office (beat-up MacBook, ancient cell phone), pay for my seven coffee refills, and meet “Sven” at the grocery store. “Wow, I'm kind of miserable?”Sure, I may have felt guilty for letting “Sven” take care of all the day-to-day details, but all that free-time it granted me did wonders for my work, right? Wrong. I felt such pressure to justify how much he was doing at home, that I was actually nearly paralyzed at work. Just when I needed to concentrate most, all I could think about was how I wanted to think about something else. And I couldn’t take a break and actually enjoy his company because, after all, I was supposed to be too busy for anything but work.
What’s more, this little experiment lasted for just a week, and I’m ashamed to admit that even in that short time I was already starting to take “Sven’s” hard work around the house for granted— who has time to notice that the bed is made, the floor is mopped, and the dishes are put away, anyway? If you can turn off the guilt (and it gets easier with each passing day, let alone every passing year) or if you are blissfully ignorant that you should feel guilty, having a stay-at-home partner could be great. But even then, you are subsequently relegated to one sphere, the work sphere, and you better make sure you can deliver there. Personally, I don’t need that kind of pressure.
When the tables were turned and “Sven” went back to work, I can hardly describe how happy I was to have a better half that truly does half of the housework. By then I had given up on Lola’s and was working from the kitchen table. I could have easily gone to the grocery store before “Sven” came back from work, made dinner even. But the idea of lugging potatoes around by myself and peeling them alone in the kitchen, made me want to gouge my eyes out after a long day. Instead, I waited for “Sven” to come home, groped him as we walked to the market, and we made dinner together, in our tiny kitchen, singing along to Lykke Li in our mutually tone-deaf way. I’ll take that kind of partnership over a stay-at-home spouse or a primary breadwinner any day. - Vetta
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