The Christmas Jumper's revenge...

Men. I just don't understand them.

Well, that's a given, I suppose, but specifically in this instance, I don't understand what has happened to men.  In the UK.

Reading The Sunday Times Style section this weekend, I came across a piece which focused on what the staff in the editorial team were wearing, and one of them (a man, just in case you hadn't worked it out already) was wearing what my mother calls a 'jumper' and what I, living in Expat World, call a 'sweater'* which featured a rather loud white on red pattern. Now, I know that a man who writes for the fashion section of a newspaper is not necessarily a barometer of what's hot in the UK now but he could be seen as perhaps a forecast for future trends.  And having read this piece it has become apparent that I am so far out of touch with the way things are going in the UK, fashion-wise, that I might as well be living on Mars.

Don't get me wrong; I like a bit of knitwear (living in Moscow, I'd better).  And I see no reason why men shouldn't spend as much or as little on whatever they think looks good, clothes-wise.  But this looked like what students refer to as 'a Christmas jumper' - that is, something you are given by your mother or grandmother or Auntie Flo during the festive season, and which you wear due to a sense of loyalty /out of love for them, rather than because it's particularly tasteful.  Because they're not, you see.  Tasteful.  Christmas jumpers are - by law - in-your-face-over-the-top-completely-too-much-activity-for-one-person-to-sport-on-a-piece-of-knitwear items of clothing.  Think Colin Firth as Mark Darcy the first time you see him in 'Bridget Jones' and you'll get what I'm talking about.

Anyway.

Sweet, I thought.  This fashionist type person (do you call a male fashion editor 'fashionista' or 'fashionist'?  Answers in the comment box, please...) was clearly wearing last year's pressie from Auntie Flo.  But no.  The jumper / sweater featured was not your average C&A acrylic number, or even a lovingly created custom made one using Pattern #375 from 'Best Knits'.  It was brand new.  It was designer (Philip Lim 3.1, if you must know).  And it cost £349.

Three hundred and forty-nine pounds?

On a JUMPER?

On a CHRISTMAS JUMPER?


Crikey.



*When I eventually move back to the UK I will revert to calling them 'jumpers' again, but following an interesting misunderstanding a couple of years back shortly after arriving in Moscow when I was bemoaning to a friend from the US that my jumpers hadn't arrived - and she thought I was talking about all-in-one baby gro type things rather than the warm and cosy knitwear I was waiting for - I decided to temporarily switch to American English on this one.  Well, wouldn't you?

This might smart a bit...

Where do you draw The Line?

For me, it's putting the laundry away. And sewing on buttons. For one of my friends, it's tending to their swimming pool (give her a break, she lives in a very warm climate), and for another, it's stepping over used boxers on her way to the bathroom in the morning. For you, it could be picking up the change, receipts and crumpled tissues left on the hall table, putting the dirty coffee cups in the sitting room into the dishwasher, or moving the shoes littering the hall floor into the cloakroom.

What am I talking about?

I'm talking about the line that many of us draw in the sand where we say; that's It. That's the one thing I choose not to do for my husband/partner, because if I do that one thing - more than any other - I will know that once and for all I have given up the fight to treat you as a grown man, and have instead accepted that I have an extra child to care for.

It's insidious, isn't it? For many of us, it seems that one minute we are tripping along in a partnership of equals, where domestic tasks, whether they be household, financial, planning or child-care related are shared, and the next... Well, the next, we look at the minutae of our daily lives and realise that somewhere along the way something has gone wrong.

Somewhere along the line our generous offers to take up the slack when our partners seem particularly stressed, busy, or are simply too exhausted to function properly have become our expected roles. And without really registering it, we have become the constant care-giver, the person responsible for deciding what is to go on the table when, what the programme for the weekend might be, what colour the kitchen should be and - almost worst of all - the go-to person when a cursory man-look doesn't reveal the location of the remote control (where you left it, darling), the matches (by the candle-stick, sweetheart), or the napkin drawer (where it's been since we moved into this house 12 years ago, dear).

This, by the way, is not something peculiar to either stay at home or working mums. I see it happening everywhere, whether the mum is home full time, whether she works part-time,or whether her more than full-time outside the home job is far more demanding and exhausting than her husband's.

I'm surrounded, both here in Moscow and back in the UK, by bright, sensational, ambitious women who assumed when they settled down with the grown-up man of their choice that he would remain that way - a grown up - and who, swept up in the day to day havoc of family life turn around one day to be blindsided by the realisation that this is not the case.

And I don't know what the answer is.

I only know it makes me mad as hell.

So I will continue to leave my husband's clean laundry in a heap at the foot of our bed, boxers unfolded, socks not sorted, and shirts not hung up, in a gesture that feels childish and not at all graceful, but which helps me to maintain my sanity. Because that is where I have chosen to draw my Line.

Where's yours?

Note: This is a post that is less a reflection of my home life than what I see going on around me. And the anger may possibly be because I'm partway through an excellent book called 'The Price of Motherhood' recommended by Noble Savage and am feeling particularly sensitive to such issues, or simply because it's rained cats and dogs all day today... Whatever the reason though, surely this is still not an acceptable state of affairs?