The City University of New York has offered its male staff paternity leave on the same terms as female staff get maternity leave. It is believed to be the first time such a provision has been offered in an American labour contract.
The Times
There are a number of things that are going to be wrong with this piece.
Some of them will be noticeable – a certain sogginess here and there; a tendency, uncharacteristic in the author, to use one word where two would normally do; arguments, if you can call them that, which start, falter, then peter emptily out; odd bits of disconnected filler, such as laundry lists, a reader’s letter or two, notes from the inside cover of my driving licence, a transcript of my tailor’s label; that sort of thing.
There will be phrases like ‘that sort of thing’.
Some of the things that are going to be wrong will not be noticeable – the fact that the writer has a tendency to fall off his chair between paragraphs; to knock his coffee into his desk drawer; to rip the trapped ribbon from his typewriter and tear it to shreds, moaning and oathing; to wake up with a start to find the impression 1QA”ZWS/XED @ CRF£V on his forehead where it has fallen into the keys; to light a cigarette while one is still ticking over in the ashtray; to stop dead, wondering where his next syllable is coming from.
Nor will you notice, since the typographer, sturdy lad, will be backing up the young author like a seasoned RSM shoring a pubescent subaltern before Mons, that a good half of the words are misspelled, if there are two ‘s’s’ in ‘misspelled’, that is; and if it shouldn’t be ‘mis(s)pelt’, anyway.
I’m glad that sentence is over; if it was a sentence. Was there a verb there?
But, for once, ineptitude will be its own defence; inadequacy its own argument. The very fact that readers this week are about to receive (have, indeed, already in part received) a substandard article with the tacks showing and the sawdust trickling out the back only proves the writer’s thesis: which is that the concept of paternity leave has been a long time a-coming. That it has come to the United States, pioneer of the ring-pull can, automatic transmission, monosodium glutamate, the Sidewinder missile, and sundry other humanitarian breakthroughs should be no surprise to anyone; what is grievous is that there is little sign that the blessed concession is to be adopted on this side of the Atlantic.
Not in time for me, anyhow. And – hang on, that little light on the bottle-warmer that goes out when the teated goody reaches the required temperature has just done so. All I have to do now is unscrew the cap on the bottle, reverse the teat, replace the cap, shake the air out, nip upstairs, prise apart the kipping gums before she’s had a chance to wake up and scream the plaster off the wall, whang in the teat, sit back, and,
Dropped it on the bloody floor.
That’s what I like about the three a.m. feed – that deftness in the fingers that only comes after two hours’ deep untroubled sleep, the clarity of the eyes rasping around behind the resinous lash-crust, the milk underfoot due to inability to find slipper and fear of turning on light in bedroom to search for same in case wife wakes up, thereby destroying entire point of self groping around in first place.
I’ll come back to the argument in a minute. Now have to boil teat, mix new feed, screw, light goes on, light goes off, unscrew, reteat, rescrew, shake, nip upstairs, prise apart kipping gums, correction, prise apart screaming gums, that’s my daughter, five weeks old and more accurate than a Rolex Oyster, it must be 3.01, must get feed done by 3.05, it takes exactly four minutes from first scream for three-year-old son to wake up, where’s my panda, where’s my fire-engine, I’m thirsty, I’m going to be sick, news that he’s going to be sick delivered on high C, thereby waking up wife at 3.09 exactly, wife shouts What’s going on? whereupon son shouts Mummy, father shouts Shut up, lights start going on in neighbouring houses . . .
3.04 and fifty seconds, breath coming short and croaky from stairs, got feed mixed, teat boiled, all screwed down, whip out miniature daughter with .001 to spare, pop in teat, falls on it like Peter Cushing on an unguarded throat. I lean back in nursery chair, feet tacky from old milk, left fag burning beside typewriter on kitchen table, know fag will burn down on ashtray rim, like Chinese torture in Boy’s Own Paper – ‘When frame leaches thong, Blitish dog, thong tighten on tligger, burret brow blains out, heh, heh, heh!’ – fag will fall off ashtray, burn hole in table, possibly burn down house, Family Flee In Nightclothes.
I am actually writing this an hour later, madness recollected in tranquillity, if you can call tranquillity thing involving cat which has woken up in filthy mood to find milk on floor, therefore licking up milk off floor, therefore in middle of floor when I come back to kitchen, therefore trodden on.
Anyhow, back to an hour ago, still feeding daughter, she beginning to drop off halfway through feed, terrible sign meaning can’t go on with feed since daughter asleep, can’t not go on, because if she goes down half-full, she’ll be up again at 4.38, screaming, son up at 4.42, where’s my panda, where’s my fire-engine, wife up at 4.46, saying If you’re incapable of doing a simple thing like a feed etcetera to sleeping form, thereby transforming it into waking form, fall out of bed in netherworld confusion, thinking fag burning house down, look around for something to Flee In, since don’t wear Nightclothes, subeditors all change headlines for 5 a.m. edition, Nude Phantom Terrorises Hampstead Third Night Running.
Wake daughter up, she cries, must be colic, hoist on shoulder, legs all colicky-kicking (I’d like to see James Joyce change a nappy), pat on back, crying goes up umpteen decibels, bring down again, mad gums grab teat, bottle empties like a Behan pint, relief.
Change daughter, all dry, smooth, cooing, give final burp with little rub, daughter hiccups, sick drenches dressing-gown sleeve, daughter’s nightdress, change daughter again, can’t find new nightdress, walk around numb and sicky, daughter shrieking now, since, having displaced part of feed, requires topping up, else valves will grind or crankshaft seize up, or something, back downstairs with daughter on shoulder wailing, feel like mad bagpiper, mix new feed one-handed, screw, light goes on, light goes off, unscrew, reteat, rescrew, shake, carry out with daughter, slam kitchen door with foot. Wake up cat.
Get upstairs, son wandering about on landing with dismembered bunny, I want a pee, can’t explain holding daughter and feeding same is priority, since Spock says AVOID SUCH CLASHES THIS WAY TO JEALOUSY ETCETERA, lead son to lavatory with spare hand, holding bottle against daughter, daughter can now see bottle like vulture over Gobi, windows rattle with renewed shrieking, leave son peeing in sleepy inaccuracy on seat, back to nursery, finish feeding daughter, son roars I CAN’T GET MY PYJAMA TROUSERS UP, try to rise with daughter, bottle falls, teat gets hairy, hammers start in skull, but thanks, dear God, daughter now full, asleep, plonk in crib, turn out light, hurtle sonwards, son not there.
Son in bedroom, shaking wife, I CAN’T GET MY PYJAMA TROUSERS UP.
I creep, broken, downstairs. You know about treading on the cat. I look at the garbling in the typewriter. It stops at ‘hang on, that little light on the bottle-warmer that goes out.’ Sit down, smelling of regurgitation and panic, stare at keyboard, listen to dawn chorus going mad, man next door coughing his lung into the receptacle provided, far loos flushing, new day creaking in on its benders.
What I was going to write about before I was so rudely interrupted was, I see from the first tatty gropings, an article about how enlightened America was to introduce paternity leave for new fathers so that they wouldn’t have to work for the first few weeks and could help cope with the latest novelty item, instead of going off to the office, the shop, the surgery, the factory.
Or the typewriter.
I had all these great arguments in favour of introducing the system over here, I had all the points worked out, it was all so lucid, so right, so uncounterable: I should bring about an instant revolution.
What arguments they were!
And if I only had the strength left to get them down on paper.