There’s a perennial bestseller called The 4-Hour Work Week written by self-help author and annoyance Timothy Ferriss. I hate this book, because it’s based on earning passive income through a few weird tricks that feel neither possible or scalable for normal people, and proves little more than the ability of self-help authors to generate passive income by writing turgid nonsense like The 4-Hour Work Week.
But, this week, I realised a four-hour work week is possible, so long as you mean a week in which you are literally only allowed near your desk for four hours, because your child is at a new nursery, and constantly catapulting home during the mandated settling-in period.
On starting this process, I discovered previously unplumbed depths of stress, as I attempted to meet the deadlines a freelance writer must honour to pay for the nursery, which my daughter seemed to be leaving a little too early each day.
I should be clear that settling-in is right and good. Trained, experienced experts stagger your child’s attendance in a way that works according to their needs. In my daughter’s case, this was entirely warranted as each time I’ve collected her she’s been crying as if lost at sea.
I don’t wish to sound churlish, but since I’ve done a few sappy columns recently, I feel as if I’ve earned the right. There’s part of me – a large, very tired part of me – that can’t quite understand what her problem is. She is, after all, being subjected to the untold horror of a giant room filled with toys, paints, cuddles and songs. My first reaction when I saw the place was a strong desire to move in myself. To spend a day finger painting and making friends and being sung to, smiled at and cared for by some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I’m just saying, if she’s not using it and I’m still paying for it, I should at least be allowed to take her place.
Our home is surely less appealing than that perfect utopia, with its bright colours and ample playthings. Not least since our house is stalked by an increasingly fatigued and stressed man (me) solemnly attempting to write 4,000 words while spooning yoghurt into her mouth. There’s no accounting for taste, but, much like how Groucho Marx would never join any club that would have him as a member, I lose a little respect for my daughter each time she chooses my company over theirs.
In the end, we spent most of the week together and it was nice to play with her all day when I really should have been doing something else. It gave our days that pleasant, bank-holiday looseness, albeit coupled with crippling professional anxiety and a bill significantly higher than the first month’s rent I paid in London years ago.
By the week’s end, her sea legs finally attached, I begin catching up on those jobs I was capable of delaying. Work is brisk, my time my own again. I should say I take satisfaction in these labours, but I can’t help feeling short-changed. I yearn now for the playroom and the finger painting, for cuddles and song. I have gazed upon paradise, why must I settle for less?
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