A little something to read:
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who loved life.
He loved climbing trees, chasing butterflies, splashing in puddles and lying on his back watching clouds drift across the sky.
He was a curious little boy, bursting with questions, ideas and dreams.
At school, he learned about extraordinary people who had changed the world. He decided he wanted to change it too.
Perhaps he could invent something wonderful using artificial intelligence, something that would help children everywhere learn to read and write.
His teacher thought it was a splendid idea.
His grandfather was less impressed.
“Very nice, son. But can your artificial intelligence cook perfect rice? What will your future wife eat?”
He was seven.
There were other important lessons.
Whenever guests arrived, his father would summon him into the kitchen.
“Quickly! Go and ask everyone if they’d like tea or coffee. And don’t forget the biscuits!”
One sister remained sprawled across the sofa while the other was upstairs. Both had their eyes on screens and earphones in.
“Why don’t they have to serve the guests?” he asked.
“Because they’re girls!”
“But they have hands.”
“Don’t be cheeky!”
“And legs.”
“Just put the kettle on!”
By ten, he could cook fluffy rice, iron shirts and carry six steaming cups without spilling a drop.
His sisters couldn’t find the kettle.
Nobody seemed particularly concerned.
As the little boy grew older, he discovered that there were even more rules about being a boy.
He mustn’t laugh too loudly, sit with his legs apart, walk alone after dark or wear anything that might attract the wrong sort of attention.
He should be attractive, but not provocative. Clever, but not opinionated. Confident, but not intimidating.
One afternoon, a group of women whistled at him from a passing car.
“Nice legs, darling!”
His grandmother was horrified.
“Well, look at those shorts! What did you expect?”
The little boy looked down at his knees.
They looked like perfectly ordinary knees to him.
Then there was the hair.
Apparently, the hair on his head was to be treasured, conditioned and styled, while the hair everywhere else was a public disgrace.
He spent hours shaving, plucking and waxing while his sisters wandered around like happy little gorillas.
And just when he thought being a boy couldn’t get any stranger, his body introduced another delightful surprise.
Every month, for several days, he suffered cramps, headaches and bleeding.
Sometimes the pain was so dreadful that he wanted to curl up beneath his blanket and stay there.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” said his grandfather, handing him a mop. “I’ve had periods for forty years and never missed a day’s work!”
The boy wondered whether his grandfather had ever considered taking a day off.
Apparently not.
Still, the little boy had big dreams.
By eighteen, he’d developed a clever computer programme that could translate lessons into dozens of languages.
He proudly demonstrated it at a technology exhibition, where it caught the attention of the CEO of a large company.
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “You’d make an excellent addition to my team.”
“Actually, I’d like to start my own company. Perhaps become a CEO myself!”
The woman laughed so hard that she nearly swallowed her chewing gum.
“A CEO? Oh, darling! That’s terribly ambitious for a boy!”
“But I’ve already developed the technology.”
“Yes, yes, very clever. Now, tell me, are you planning to have children?”
“Children? I’m only eighteen!”
“Well, you’ll have them eventually. And what happens when they’re ill? Would you expect your wife to interrupt her career?”
“Umm, I suppose we could take turns?”
The woman looked at him as though he’d suggested replacing the entire board of directors with dancing penguins.
“You’d be better suited to an administrative role. Something flexible. You boys are so much happier when you can balance work and family.”
Just then, a young woman approached with her own invention.
The CEO was delighted.
“Wonderful! We need ambitious young women like you! Have you considered joining our executive leadership programme?”
The little boy felt flummoxed.
Nevertheless, he continued developing his invention, dreaming of classrooms in distant villages filled with children learning to read.
But everyone seemed far more interested in whether he’d found himself a wife.
When he suggested he might never marry at all, his father nearly choked on his tea.
“Never marry? What will people think?”
His unmarried uncle who taught yoga, travelled the world and was perfectly happy, was the subject of whispers and much concern.
“Forty-two and still single! Poor thing. There must be something wrong with him.”
His divorced aunt, meanwhile, had just bought a sports car and was holidaying with her handsome new boyfriend.
“Good for her!” everyone said. “Life’s too short!”
The boy wondered whether life was shorter for girls.
Eventually, to everyone’s enormous relief, he married.
It was a magnificent wedding.
His outfit required three fittings, two waxing appointments, an uncomfortable amount of strategic padding, and he only had to lose eight pounds to fit into it.
Everyone agreed he looked extremely handsome, although his grandfather thought he’d shown rather too much ankle.
And then the celebrations ended.
He changed his surname, packed his life into a few suitcases and said goodbye to the only home he’d ever known.
He left behind his parents, his sisters, his room, his friends, the familiar streets and all the people he’d grown up turning to when life went wrong.
Then he went to live in somebody else’s home, with somebody else’s family, where even the way they made tea was different.
Everyone told him how lucky he was.
“This is your family now,” they said.
So he smiled, swallowed the enormous lump in his throat and tried not to wonder how an entire lifetime of belonging could be replaced in a single afternoon.
His father-in-law welcomed him warmly.
“We’ll treat you just like our own son!”
Then he handed him an apron.
His wife was a successful businesswoman who travelled, attended conferences and enjoyed regular evenings out with her friends.
She was terribly proud of how progressive their marriage was.
“Of course you can work!” she said. “We’re a modern family and a little extra income coming in certainly wouldn’t hurt!”
And so the little boy, now a grown man, found himself a nice little part-time job entering numbers into a computer.
It had nothing to do with his dreams, but the hours were convenient and he could be home in time to cook dinner and care for his in-laws.
Everyone congratulated him on having it all.
His salary went into their joint bank account, although he wasn’t entirely sure what was joint about it.
His wife had plenty of time to concentrate on her career. Meanwhile, he had another full-time job at home, cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry and keeping the household and its occupants more or less alive.
It was an unpaid position with no holidays, no pension and rather demanding management.
He sometimes wondered how far his wife would have progressed in her career if she’d had to do all that herself.
Still, his contribution wasn’t entirely unrecognised. He had the great honour of choosing the toilet bleach.
Once, he bought himself a laptop with his own earnings. His wife didn’t speak to him for three days.
His father-in-law advised him to apologise. “Better a happy wife than a happy bank account!”
The boy wasn’t entirely sure why they couldn’t have both.
Marriage brought other surprises.
He’d imagined that intimacy would be tender and wonderful, but sometimes it hurt. When he asked his wife to slow down, she grew impatient.
His uncle had always told him that a good husband must keep his wife happy in the ‘you know what’ department. Nobody had mentioned whether the husband was supposed to enjoy himself too.
And then, one wonderful day, there was a baby on the way!
Everyone was delighted.
Unfortunately, he felt absolutely dreadful. He was sick, swollen, exhausted and emotional.
Once, he cried because there were no mangoes in the house.
His wife thought he was ridiculous.
“Pregnancy isn’t an illness!” his father-in-law reminded him. I did it twice and without all this drama. “Now, have you put the rice on?”
When the baby arrived, everyone congratulated his wife with slaps on the back, cigars and a liquid lunch.
From his hospital bed, he smiled weakly at her on a video call. He was exhausted and stitched up.
“Is there anything at home for dinner?” she asked.
A few months later, his wife changed a nappy.
Her mother took a photograph and posted it online.
It received 247 likes.
What an incredible mother!
You’re so lucky!
Mother of the Year!
By then, he’d changed approximately nine hundred nappies.
Nobody had thought to photograph him.
And so the years rolled by.
His wife received promotions. His children grew. His in-laws grew older.
His little computer gathered dust.
One evening, he visited an old schoolfriend who had become a successful surgeon which was a huge achievement because it was not common for a man.
His friend and his wife were both senior doctors. They worked equally long hours, earned almost equally good salaries and had two young children.
His friend had performed two operations that day, collected the children, bought groceries and was now cooking dinner while sorting the laundry.
His wife was relaxing on the sofa, watching television with the children.
“Darling,” his friend called, “could you bathe the children and get them ready for bed?”
“Of course,” she replied.
“Wow!” exclaimed our little boy, who was no longer quite so little. “You’ve really got her under your thumb! How did you manage that?”
…
Our young man loved his family dearly. He enjoyed making people happy.
But sometimes he missed climbing trees, dancing in the rain and doing things simply because he wanted to.
One Friday, while his wife was getting ready for another evening out with her friends, he mentioned that some old friends had invited him to their weekly dinner and drinks group.
“Going out?” she asked, applying her perfume.
“Just once a week.”
“But you have responsibilities!”
“So do you.”
“Yes, darling, but that’s different.”
His father-in-law was horrified.
“Going out with your friends? Like a woman?”
“It’s only once a week!”
“Next you’ll want a weekend away!”
The boy’s face lit up.
“What a wonderful idea!”
His father-in-law nearly fainted.
Then, one afternoon, something extraordinary happened.
An investor contacted him about the little computer programme he’d invented all those years ago.
She wanted to fund it.
Oh, how his heart leapt!
He rushed to tell his wife.
“Someone wants to invest in my programme!”
“That little hobby of yours?”
“It’s not a hobby! I could finally build the company I’ve always dreamed of!”
“And where will you find the money?”
“Well, this investor sounds serious, and I’ve been putting my salary into our account for years. Perhaps I could use some of it?”
She looked astonished.
“Our money?”
“But I’ve earned some of it too.”
“Don’t be ungrateful. You have a lovely home and everything you need!”
“But I’d like to make something of my own.”
And that, apparently, was a very selfish thing to say.
By morning, the entire family had heard about his disgraceful behaviour.
His mother telephoned.
“Just apologise and keep the peace.”
“But I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“You’re becoming terribly outspoken.”
His father was particularly disappointed.
“A good man knows when to keep quiet.”
…
That evening, while our boy was preparing dinner, the family were gathered round the television watching an interview.
A glamorous woman was sitting beneath the studio lights, talking about her new book.
It had become an international bestseller.
She’d left home at sixteen, built a company from nothing and was now travelling the world telling packed theatres about choosing your own path.
“I was dreading the life everyone expected of me,” she said. “Then one morning I thought: what’s stopping me? This is MY life.”
The audience applauded.
His wife looked up from the sofa.
“I love her.”
“Brilliant woman,” said his mother-in-law.
The presenter held up her book.
“And now you’re taking this message around the world?”
“Twenty-seven cities!”
More applause.
The woman smiled.
The programme ended.
The news began.
A young man appeared on the screen.
He wasn’t sitting beneath studio lights.
He was standing outside a courthouse.
He looked tired.
The reporter explained that he’d been attacked by a woman he’d known for years. He said she’d forced herself on him repeatedly.
The mother-in-law frowned.
“There’s always two sides. He must have provoked her.”
“Why did he keep going back? What an idiot.” said the boy’s wife.
On the screen, the young man spoke.
“I kept quiet for a long time because I was afraid.”
His father-in-law shook his head.
“Tut tut. Some things should stay private.”
The reporter asked him how he’d found the courage to speak up.
The young man looked down.
“When I told my family, some of them turned their backs on me. They seemed more ashamed that I spoke about it than angry that it happened.”
He looked into the camera.
“I’m not afraid anymore. And if my telling my story helps someone, it’s worth it. Even if I’m alone.”
Nobody in the room said anything.
The onions began to burn.
He stood there for a moment, wooden spoon in his hand.
Then four little words drifted back to him.
This is MY life.
He thought of the boy who had once dreamed of changing the world.
The boy who’d asked so many questions.
The boy who had gradually stopped asking.
He turned off the stove.
Upstairs, his old computer was waiting.
He opened it and found the business proposal he’d written years ago.
On the first page were his words:
I want to make the world a better place.
He smiled.
Then he began typing an email: Thank you for your interest. I’d love to talk.
…
The following morning, his little son was sitting at the kitchen table drawing.
“What are you making?” he asked.
“A robot! It will help old people who live alone!”
“What a wonderful idea!”
“Papa, do you think I could invent things when I grow up?”
“Of course!”
“But Grandma says boys should find a good wife and look after their families.”
The man looked at his son.
At the bright eyes, the hopeful face, the tiny hands already trying to build something extraordinary.
He pulled up a chair.
“Come on. Let’s design your robot.”
Just then, the doorbell rang.
“Guests!” called his wife. “Boys! Put the kettle on!”
