My husband and I have been married for six and a half years now and just over a year ago we decided to move off the family farm as my husband was given a career opportunity that excited him intellectually.
My husband now manages an agricultural branch in my hometown. He has four employees that report to him, but his store also includes branch wide employees who work upstairs as well as another smaller irrigation company who rent office and store front space. All in all there are usually around 10 people in the building, the majority male (married and older than my hubby) give or take a few.
Now, my husband took a little while to settle into his role because the time of year in which he started was just as things ramped up. After about six months, he was part of the furniture there and soon small comments and questions were directed his way.
‘Does your wife make your lunch?’ was the first question as other staff members noticed a particularly appetising bread roll on his desk. He answered in the affirmative and thought that was the end of it.
However, due to an WH&S oversight, the business didn’t actually have a staff room and table where the employees could sit and eat their lunch. Suffering from a creative spark – those who know my husband will understand this is not a common occurrence – he managed to create an eating area adjacent to the staff kitchen.
Now, the employees can eat lunch at the same time, around the same table. This is when my husband began to endure more teasing…
To ‘Does your wife make your lunch?’ were added, ‘Does your wife iron your clothes too?’ and my favourite, ‘Does your wife bake?’
So now my husband is teased, good naturedly of course, about his wife as his colleagues who each make their own lunches and iron their own uniforms rib him about how good he gets it and bemoan, also good naturedly, that their wives don’t do the same. ‘I wish my wife baked,’ and ‘I bet she keeps the house clean too!’ are just some of the comments that have made it home. I must confess though, as you’ll appreciate, with four kids under 6 my house isn’t all that tidy. Clean yes, but not tidy.
My hubby often comes home laughing about something they’ve said, like teasing him about his ‘play lunch’. But I’m beginning to believe that he invites this teasing. If I send something in his lunch box like a slice or a piece of cake he often shares it with another staff member so he can gloat about what his wife bakes.
You see, these men are all married to very competent wives who work full time and I’m a stay at home mum. Of course I have time to do these extra things. If I was working full time, I wouldn’t have the time to iron hubby’s uniform and make his lunch or bake as much as I do. Before we had children he did this himself though I confess he often resorted to buying lunch instead of making it…
If I worked fulltime hubby would be in the same situation. But he’s not and I think he’s revelling in it.
To make matters worse most recently hubby asked me to bring our new baby into his place of employment so that all the staff could meet him. ‘And,’ he said as he told me the day and time, ‘I thought you could bring in some scones.’
Hmm. Although I did feel a little bit like the morning tea lady I did the required baking and took them out to his work along with my 4 and 2 year old daughters and our 7 week old son. Needless to say I was welcomed with open arms.
The scones were straight out of the oven and wrapped in clean tea towels and were served with freshly whipped cream and strawberry jam. I baked a double batch, less than half of which were eaten whilst we were there.
When hubby arrived home from work that evening he declared the whole thing a success. The scones were completely gone, the jar of strawberry jam emptied and only a small amount of cream remained.
‘We ate the rest for lunch,’ he admitted.
Then a thought occurred to me. ‘You didn’t tell them that the jam was homemade did you?’
‘I did actually.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I bet you got teased for that.’
‘All day. I think they’d be surprised,’ he mused, ‘if they knew you got over 90 in your HSC.’
To that I had to agree. I mean, what kind of woman would give up work to stay at home and raise her children full time?
A happy one.
Originally posted 2014-04-22 03:15:37.