'I Don't Know How She Does It' the sequel: 5 truths Kate Reddy taught working mums about life
To any woman who's ever attempted to juggle young children and a career, Allison Pearson's debut novel I Don't Know How She Does It will have felt heart-wrenchingly relatable. Whether or not you're a high-flying fund manager like Pearson's protagonist Kate Reddy, there are multiple truths contained within the book's pages that have spoken to us all. Now, as the character of Kate returns in Pearson's sequel, How Hard Can It Be? , published today, we reflect on some of the life lessons she has already taught us.
1. Home-made doesn't actually have to mean made in your own home
I Don't Know How She Does It opens with a scene of domestic desperation: Kate Reddy is bashing shop-bought mince pies with a rolling pin in an attempt to pass them off as home-made for her daughter to take to school. The ruse takes "fake it until you make it" to new levels. It also communicates a well-known working mum truth: you can't be a genuine domestic goddess when you've got a full-time job and kids. Anyone who appears to be pulling off this feat must be faking it in ways so clever you can't even see the rolling pin marks.
2. Nits are now very middle class
At least according to Kate Reddy's friend Debra. The trouble is, these middle class nits, contracted by your children at school, will crawl through your consciousness until you can think of nothing else, as Kate realises when, over dinner, she suffers "a vision of busy nits abseiling into the client's clam chowder." Tasty.
3. Your relationship with the nanny? It's complicated
You need to keep her on side (Kate spends more money on her nanny Paula's Christmas presents than on the rest of the family). And you want the kids to get on with her - but not too much. "I want Paula", Kate's daughter Emily crushingly whimpers to her one Sunday. The Nanny will do all the things you should be doing with your kids, but in the strange working mum economy, the guiltier this makes you feel, the more money you throw at her. ("Richard thinks that I indulge Paula, that I let her get away with things no employee you reward with generous pay and conditions should be allowed to get away with," confesses Kate.)
4. If something gives - it will be probably be your social life
In an existence so packed there's hardly a second in your day unaccounted for, seeing friends is a luxury you can ill afford. Kate is constantly putting off friend Debra, to the extent that their "string of cancelled lunches over the past year had stretched our friendship to twanging point." One of Kate's to-do lists (more of which later) includes the poignant item, "call friends, hope they remember you." Something's got to give when you're trying to have it all, and sadly your social life is often that thing.
5. To-do lists are your ultimate crutch
How else would you keep track of the myriad strands of life you are trying to juggle? Kate's to-do lists are dotted through the book, a chronicle of the frantic, half-formed thoughts that run through every working mum's mind each day. Sometimes, they will optimistically feature items such as, "buy basil and pine nuts to make own pesto." At other times, they will contain the mundane: "Quote for stair carpet?" At all times they are the written expressions of what has been called the "mental load" - that burden of domestic knowledge and planning a woman is so often saddled with.
How Hard Can It Be? by Allison Pearson is published by Borough (£14.99).
To order your copy for £12.99 plus p&p call 0844 871 1514, or visit books.telegraph.co.uk.
