If you ask me...My family means business and as housewife and mother, that makes me its CEO

I'm afraid I've had to lay off my youngest, but then being an executive domestic decision maker involves some tough choices

30th June 1914: Mr and Mrs Terry of Greenwich, London, with part of their family of nineteen children. (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

If you ask me, I’m fascinated by this business of repositioning the housewife as a “domestic CEO” who, at various junctures, assumes the role of “head accountant”, “travel agent”, “executive decision maker” (etc, etc) and whose children represent “the most thrilling corporate project, one where competition with rival families can be especially fierce”.

I certainly know this is the case because, just this morning, I laid off my youngest who, I’m afraid to report, has always proved a hopeless loafer. He won’t even engage in regular Spanish, let alone extra Spanish on a Tuesday evening!

It is never pleasant laying off your own child – there were tears as he gathered his belongings and security marched him out – but as I said to him: “If we are going to see everything though a male, capitalist prism, you must accept that we, as a corporation, simply cannot afford to carry you any more.” I also had a daughter once, but I outsourced her to China.

Personally, I love seeing the world through a male, capitalist prism in which becoming a CEO is viewed as the ultimate prize; as everyone’s ambition realised. Some days, looking at the world like this is all I would do, if only I had the time between making executive decisions and running the travel agency and conducting performance reviews. (The dog is going to have to go next, which is a shame, as I am rather fond of him on a personal level.)

And although some would argue this re-labelling of the housewife is just a sop to avoid discussing the true contribution she makes to society, economic and otherwise, or concentrating on better working conditions for mothers who do have jobs, I’m not among them. Seriously, what part of being a housewife isn’t like being a CEO? Are you telling me the CEO of BT doesn’t spend most of his time making meals for those who show no gratitude, attending to “employees” who need a wee at 2am, affecting an interest in diggers/tractors/dinosaurs, and doing lots and lots of other boring stuff for no money, no sick pay, no holiday pay, no pension, no shares and no economic independence of any kind? If you don’t mind my asking, are you living on another planet?

The thing is, until there are as many stay-at-home dads as mums and as many females heading corporations as there are males, some might say all this “CEO” business is actually rubbish. Fair enough, but it’s not what I said to the dog. Instead, I said: “You’ve already had a verbal warning and two written ones. One more, and you’re out.”

It’ll break my heart, but if you’re going to go with the capitalist way of thinking, it has to be done.