The Husbands: He Laughed, I Cried

When my friend Elena's husband was at the library a few weeks ago, he picked up the novel The Husbands by Chandler Baker. When he got home, he was laughing out loud reading it.

Elena suggested I might need a laugh, and threw the book out there as a suggestion, given the mountains of unhappy events in my life in the past few weeks.

I downloaded the book to my Kindle. Where Kevin laughed, I cried. Here we have a working mom whose educated, salesman husband can't figure out how to buy new shoes for a four year old, so he dumps the task on his working wife. 

According to Elena, Kevin related to the husband in the book. "I do these things!" Kevin laughed. "I can't believe it." To Kevin's credit, Elena saw an him step up. His incompetence decreased.

Yes, men who run multi-national corporations (I am exaggerating) can't figure out how to run a bath,  make a meal, or take a load of laundry from start to finish. No, putting the clothes in the machine, adding soap and starting it doesn't get you half credit. The clothes need to be folded and put away for the task to count.

Anyway, the world needs more men to read stories like this, and then have then take on more emotional load. Likewise, it would be nice if men had more awareness of the totality of the work mother do, and then demonstrate sincere appreciation and awe at the work we do every day to maintain our families and homes.