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Then I usually had a few interviews to do, and afterwards I’d write them up on the computer, and at some point, I’d go out for lunch. I liked to just go out to the market and get some vegetables. I used to be a vegetarian in England, but it’s not quite so easy here. Well, it’s not only that it’s not easy, I actually quite liked meat, in Hungary I had an excuse, to try all of the different types of meat produce. Still, I don’t eat meat every day and I very rarely cook it, so I like to buy lots of vegetables. So, I would buy peppers and tomatoes and some bread rolls and things, and then have a cold lunch. In the afternoon, it would be more of the same, writing up, or maybe working on some longer story or interview.
Now that I work freelance, I tend to work at home a lot, or to go out and do interviews and then come home and type them up.
It’s difficult calling newspapers in England, ‘cause you have to call them in the mornings, and so it’s very expensive. Also, I find it quite difficult dealing with people on the phone. If they don’t know who you are, they just hear a name and a voice on the other end of the line, and you have to be really pushy to sell your story to them. So, the business side of journalism is quite difficult, and it’s not something that I particularly enjoy.
I used to come home at about seven. I stayed quite late at work, and then did some shopping on the way back to get some food for the evening, and when I got back, I’d start cooking. My flatmate would cook maybe once a week, but I actually enjoy cooking. I find it really relaxing. After thinking all day, it’s nice to just chop up vegetables and think of something really mindless, and not have to concentrate too hard. I make a lot of Indian food, I suppose. My parents used to cook lot of Indian meals with spices, so I bought lots of spices in London. Some of them are quite difficult to get here. My flatmate likes pasta and Italian food, so I cook that sometimes. I also cook a lot of vegetable dishes.
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I don’t read as many books as I used to, say, when I was at university. This is probably because I have to read all day, reading newspapers, and I get a bit fed up with reading. So, unfortunately, I don’t read that much. I’ve bought lots of Hungarian literature though, and I keep telling myself that one day I’m going to read it all. However, when I come home from work, I’m usually so exhausted that I just sit there, stare at the television and drink cups of tea all evening and go to bed maybe about midnight.
HOUSEHOLD CHORES
Vivien
There are stereotypical responsibilities of the husband, the wife, and the children in a family. They say that the wife’s responsibilities are, basically, to do everything, as far as I can see… to make the beds in the morning, cook the breakfast, and then when the children go to school and the husband goes to work, to start washing the clothes, then tidy up the kitchen, do the washing up, clean the kitchen, go shopping and buy the food for the week, and then put out the washing. If she has a garden, she can hang the washing out on a washing-line – and then tidy up the living room, do the hoovering (the vacuum cleaning), and tidy the children’s bedrooms, although I think it should be the children’s responsibility, really, to keep their own bedrooms tidy.
The typical role of a husband, I suppose, is that during the week he goes out to work and earns money for the family. Maybe, at the weekend, he cleans the car and does more technical things around the house, like changing fuses and putting up shelves. Lots of people in England are really into DIY, that’s do-it-yourself, and they try to make furniture, put in their own bathroom appliances, put tiles on the bathroom walls themselves, put up shelves and things like that, and these things are usually seen as the husband’s responsibility. It’s also seen as his job to put up the wallpaper, paint the walls, and maybe also to work in the garden, mowing the lawn, cutting the hedges, trimming the rosebushes, etc.
I think it’s becoming much more balanced these days, as quite often the wife goes out to work too, and, of course, when she comes home from work, she doesn’t want to have to start doing the vacuuming immediately. Some men are more willing to iron their own shirts and sew on buttons than others, but I think, nowadays, they’re quite often willing to help out with the household chores, such as cooking or washing up the dirty plates after the meal.
Concerning the children’s responsibilities, I think they should definitely keep their own rooms tidy and make their own beds. If I had children, I would give them some pocket money, but on condition that they did some chores around the house every week. In this way, they might learn that the house doesn’t clean itself. You have to get the vacuum cleaner out and do some work if you want the place to stay tidy.
Wife, mother and career woman… well, I suppose if you’re a housewife and that’s what you’ve decided you want to be, then that’s fine, but you have to take all the duties that go with that. So you have to be prepared to look after children and really play some part in their upbringing, and help them learn to read and write, and teach them how to tell the time and do up their shoelaces, take them to school, things like that. You also have to be prepared to do all the boring menial household duties. However, I think that if a woman wants to go out to work, she should be able to. Some people think it’s really bad if the wife leaves the children, puts them in a nursery school and goes out to work, as if she was neglecting them, but if she stayed at home with the children and was miserable, it wouldn’t solve anything, because maybe then she would just resent the children. So, a woman should follow her own heart, I think, and if she wants to work, then that’s fine.
In England now, and I think in Hungary as well, it’s more accepted that a woman can have a family and a career, whereas before it was seen as something shocking, and men were outraged that their children would be left with strangers, and thought that it was the wife’s duty to bring them up. I think that’s all changed now.
I share a flat with a Hungarian girl, and I think we split the household chores quite evenly. It doesn’t seem to be that different in Hungary and in England. I think everybody hates doing the hoovering wherever they are. Although some people really like ironing, I can’t say I do. I don’t really like any household chores that much. Hoovering’s probably about the best one, and the worst I think is cleaning the bath, because it kills your back.
I don’t like sewing or knitting or any of those typical female pursuits. I’m terrible at knitting. We used to have to knit at school, knit scarves, which they said they would make into blankets for the poor or something like that. Mine was always so awful that my mum would have to take over, and she would end up doing it. We also had to go to some sewing classes, but I was always bottom in them as well. So, I don’t sew now very often. I could sew on a button, but that’s about it.