10 mistakes house husbands make - by Paul Merrill, house husband

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Paul Merrill has learnt many lessons since giving up work to look after his sons


SWAPPING the workplace for domestic duty can be a steep learning curve for blokes
When Paul Merrill decided to give up work to become a house husband a year ago, he looked forward to bonding with his three boys (then aged 12, nine and five), getting in a few rounds of golf and de-stressing. But the reality was very different. Here are his blunders, listed as a warning to brave men contemplating such a move

THINKING I COULD HANDLE THE LOSS OF STATUS
OK, so I didn't miss getting home from work at 7pm to find only the dog was pleased to see me, but at least I'd spent the day managing a team of professionals and holding a position of authority. I'd made important decisions, held meetings with clients and lunched at trendy restaurants where napkins weren't made of paper. Now the important decisions involved whether my youngest was more likely to eat Dora the Explorer or Wiggles yoghurt (neither, as it turned out) and if I could get away with giving him the bolognaise sauce that had sat in
the fridge for a week

HOPING THE KIDS WOULDN'T NOTICE MY LITTLE BLUNDERS
There are some errors I did make only once - putting uncooked bacon in their packed lunches because I thought it was ham and mistaking antibacterial wipes containing bleach for moist toilet tissues while treating the five-year-old. Oh, and forgetting to fill in a note from school giving permission for the middle child to go on a three-day excursion. With each one, you see a look in their eyes that says, "Mummy wouldn't have done that." Then Mummy gets home, is informed and confirms she has, indeed, never done that


DUSTING OFF THE GOLF CLUBS
I'm not saying I ever thought housework and looking after kids was easy, but I assumed there'd be a nice round-of-golf-sized hole in my day once I'd cleared away the breakfast things and before the afternoon school run. What else would there be to do? Sadly, my golf clubs soon had dust on them. I quickly learnt the six hours between 9am and 3pm are sucked into a time warp and actually last about an hour. And that's with all my crafty timesaving measures, such as taking dirty clothes out of laundry baskets, refolding them and putting them away in the kids' drawers


NOT FOLLOWING WASHING MACHINE INSTRUCTIONS
As I unloaded the washing machine during my first week, I wondered what had prompted my wife to buy so many pale pink items (including underwear for me) and why on earth we had a cashmere sweater small enough for a Barbie. My other error was not checking pockets for sticks of stringy cheese - and then shoving the newly washed load into the tumble dryer. The resulting aroma was far from the 'summer meadow' promised on the washing powder box. It was more like 'summer cheese repository abandoned for several weeks'. A coping mechanism I developed for when I'd forgotten to hang out school uniforms was to microwave them dry. One tip: don't do it for white shirts; they tend to crisp up and go brown


GETTING CAUGHT UP IN THE POLITICS OF THE SCHOOL GATE
Far from being a happy place where children skip into the arms of their adoring mothers, the school gate is a seething tangle of warring gangs and rival tribes, all of whom will be suspicious that a man has entered their midst. If you chat to one, you'll be blanked by others because her little boy hit their little girl. Also, there will be: a) the sexy mum with the short, denim skirt and hoop earrings, who the others resent for looking like a hooker; b) the shouty one whose parenting technique is about who can bellow loudest; and c) the bitchy gossip who gleefully spreads destructive rumours. They all get on about as well as Japanese fighting fish in a jam jar. I found my best bet was to hover at the edge of the playground, quietly beckon the kids over, bundle them into the car and speed off without a backwards glance


COOKING THE KIDS HEALTHY FOOD
As the old proverb probably doesn't go: You can lead children to chopped carrots with a hummus dip, but you can't make them eat it. No, porridge doesn't need honey if it contains bananas and sultanas, but my children knew if they staged a hunger strike for long enough, I'd crack long before Mummy ever would. And once I gave in, there was no going back. It then became a case of making sure the pizza boxes were buried deep in the recycling bin and that a few strands of carrot peel were placed next to the sink for effect before Mummy came home from work


IMAGINING IT WOULD BUY ME SEX
One morning, I read a newspaper article that said women who work full-time and then have housework to do are too tired for sex. So, that day, I put on and hung out two loads of washing, vacuumed and dusted upstairs and downstairs, cooked the kids' dinner, did the shopping and cleaned the kitchen until it was spotless, so there would be nothing left for my wife to do. By the time she came home from work, I had long since collapsed on the sofa and didn't wake up until morning


VOLUNTEERING AT SCHOOL
This will come about when a friendly mum asks you if you might be able to help out with some classroom reading. When no excuse comes to mind quickly enough and you agree, you'll find yourself firstly conscripted as a classroom assistant, then put in charge of the Christmas fete and fundraising auction, co-opted onto the P&C, made coach of the under-7's soccer team and assigned lollipop lady duty outside the school twice a week for a minimum of four years. Your reward will be a small footnote of thanks on one of the weekly school newsletters and to be hated even more by all the mums for showing them up


EXPECTING MY MATES TO TREAT ME THE SAME AS BEFORE
Until I gave up working, I had no idea how much of my conversation with mates at the pub was all about, well, work - from drunken co-workers and deals gone awry to the best places for power lunches and that new account I'd just won. The one rule was: you don't talk about your kids, because that's boring. But that was my job now. Had I become boring? Also, your job defines who you are: "This is Peter, he's an architect." Now, for me it was: "This is Paul, he cleans the toilet and irons his wife's skirts - badly

WAITING FOR A FEW WORDS OF THANKS
When I worked in an office, I was paid money every month and sometimes given a bonus. If I did something good, people patted me on the back and, from time to time, I was promoted and given a shiny new title. Now I was putting in longer hours and working directly with the 'clients', but my work was invisible. On the (admittedly rare) occasions I slaved for hours in a hot kitchen to whip up a delicious dinner, the kids would begrudgingly pick at it for a while and then ask if there was "anything else". I learnt never to describe any meal as "good for you" or "healthy", as to them that means 'inedible'. No one noticed the swept floors, fresh linen or clean oven… just as I had never noticed them in the past