Hobby or Job?

I was just listening to an author interview on the radio, and he was talking about when he started. He said, "Well, I would just come home from work, go to my office and write for five hours. My wife would hold dinner and we would eat at 10pm." How nice for him. This got me irritated and it took me a while to figure out why. It's men.

When a man decides that he is going to "become a writer", everyone says how great and they look at it as a second job for the poor overworked guy. When a woman decides to "become a writer" people see it as a nice little hobby that should be done when there is time after everything else is finished. Not that DH isn't supportive (he is), but I can only imagine the look on his face if I greeted him at 5pm, said "Hi dear, I'm going to go write now. Make sure the kids have dinner, finish their homework, get cleaned up and put to bed. Then make sure that the laundry is folded, the dishes are done and that everything is ready to go for tomorrow. I'll see you at 10 when I'm done." Uh, right. No, I do my fiction writing after the kids go to bed and before I do.

I think what I need is a wife.

On this date: In 1915, the world's largest diamond is found in South Africa