There's a brilliant and lovely piece in today's G2 by Frank Cottrell Boyce. His overt target is the view that the pram in the hallway is the enemy of good art, and it is well worth reading on that account alone. But, whether wittingly or unwittingly, Frank also provides a timely counterweight to all those articles about children being a drag on personal happiness. He writes:
Ever since [then], I have been suspicious of the modern philosophy of "me time". I happened to make a throwaway comment to this effect earlier this year, on Desert Island Discs, and honestly you'd think I'd refused to abide by the laws of gravity. At every event I have done since, the traditional "Where d'you get your ideas from?" question has been replaced by a perplexed, testy quizzing about "me time". One young man asked me if I wasn't worried about "the pram in the hallway". I asked him where the phrase came from. "Cyril Connolly." "And what did he ever write?" The questioner thought for a minute then said, "Shit. Yeah", and thanked me for "liberating him from fear". Blimey.
It's not that I don't like a break now and then. I just don't buy the idea that the break is "because I'm worth it" or that I'm taking "the time to be me". What is "me", if not the sum of all my relationships and obligations? A customer, that's what. The more you give, the more you are.
If this were a philosophy seminar, I might want to enter a reservation or two. I'm more than just the sum of my relationships and obligations, because there are bits of me that are independent of them: my thumb for example, or that copy of Wisden with the ink stain; again, illness when someone has it, isn't reducible to relationships or obligations. Yet in the present context this would be nit-picking. Connectedness matters to people, most people anyway, and the current habit of measuring up what they get from those they love against the pleasure of watching TV or going for a run is misconceived.