Bringing home the bacon

School holidays have begun. The time of year when working parents scramble madly to cobble together sufficient care arrangements and fun! holiday! activities! to fill the working week.

Bill graduated from ‘Novice Dad’ this week when he passed the moderate-to-high level challenge of having someone else’s child with his own two children at home for the entire day, alone. He did well. Children and house surviving nicely, and he, looking remarkably calm. (I know, I know, probably only a moderate level challenge for a primary care-giver, but still). My friend was stuck. A sudden closure of her school’s vacation care program and she is fully booked with patients while it seems every other doctor in town has gone on leave. She is screwed.

Patched together care arrangements left me with a little gap myself one afternoon this week and I ended up with Cormac at work with me in the Beige Wonderland. I don’t generally think much about my work and its contribution to the household except for the pure practicalities of when is that bill due and how close is that to my next pay-day. But on this occasion I had this little Mary Tyler Moore moment of self-satisfaction when I was click-clacking my way out of the building in my heels with Cormac on my hip. Like the feeling I can get from breastfeeding, the pride of providing, I was all ‘look at me kids, look at me bringing home the (vegetarian) bacon, and frying it up too’.