On Saturday, someone leaves early to go cycling. On Sunday there is another ride, or a football match to attend, perhaps away from home. During the week, there is time for the gym. All these activities can bring joy, energy and friendships. But when one person closes the door to go and pursue their passion, life inside the home continues.
The children need to eat, get dressed, be taken places and be listened to. Someone must organise lunch, respond to requests and change plans when something unexpected happens. And that someone is very often the same person.
This is where I would like to focus our attention. One person’s free time may be made possible by the time the other no longer has for themselves. If we fail to notice this, we risk calling something freedom when it is an arrangement that distributes the work deeply unfairly.
A passion deserves space. How much is left for others?
A passion can enrich our lives. It helps us express part of ourselves, meet people and develop abilities that everyday work leaves in the shadows. Becoming a partner and a parent should not erase all of this. I would like my children to keep interests, friendships and wishes of their own even within their most important relationships.
The problem arises when a passion consistently takes up all the available time. For one person it means whole days cycling every Saturday and Sunday; for another, many evenings at the gym; for another, following the team every Sunday, home and away. At that point we need to look at the whole calendar: who has been able to choose their commitments? Who has been left with the ones that cannot be postponed?
The quality of a pastime does not answer these questions. An activity that is healthy, demanding or socially admired can coexist with behaviour that shows little consideration for the family. To understand whether there is balance, we must also look at the life of the person who stays behind.
Sunday for the person who stays
While he cycles, she may spend the day caring for the children. She wanted to invite friends over, but arranging everything on her own becomes complicated. She would have liked lunch at her mother’s with the whole family, but the whole family is not available. Perhaps she simply wanted to go out without having to organise every detail before stepping through the door.
She loses more than hours. She loses the ease of making decisions, the possibility of changing her mind and the right to rest without constant interruptions. One person is in charge of their own time; the other must fit their wishes into whatever space remains.
Coming home in the evening does not automatically cancel out this difference. “I am tired; I have ridden a hundred kilometres” may be true. The person who has spent the day with the children may be tired too, even without kilometres to report or a performance to display.
In my examples the husband goes out and the wife stays, but the roles can be reversed. The issue concerns anyone who habitually builds their own freedom on the other person’s availability, taken for granted.
“He works all day: he deserves his hobbies”
There is an understandable reason behind this sentence. People who work need rest, enjoyment and personal time. But the sentence remains incomplete until we ask what rest is available to the person who continues to care for the home and children. She may also have a job outside the home; even if she does not, the work of caring still takes time and energy.
Bringing home an income is an important responsibility. Caring for children is another important responsibility. Both help sustain a family. It would be unfair to use paid work as a reason to make invisible the effort that does not appear on a payslip.
That is why I would add another sentence to “He deserves his hobbies”: “You deserve time for yourself as well.” Real time, agreed and protected. Even simply to rest, read or sit quietly: nobody should have to invent a spectacular passion in order to deserve a break.
When generosity becomes a habit of going without
Some couples happily agree to give each other large amounts of personal space. From outside, we do not know all their arrangements. A person’s contentment deserves to be heard, without assuming it always conceals distress.
An agreement, however, must remain open to discussion and change. An arrangement that worked before children arrived can become burdensome afterwards. Being willing to make room at one stage of life is not a commitment to go without forever. Someone who said “Go ahead” yesterday must be able to say “I need you to stay” today without being treated as an obstacle.
The selfishness that concerns me can be quiet, polite and even unconscious. It does not need to forbid anything: it only has to book every available space first and leave the other person to adapt. “I am going on Sunday” becomes a final announcement. The other person’s Sunday is still to be negotiated.
This is an imbalance that deserves to be named. Someone who continually benefits from that availability has a responsibility to ask what it costs and whether it is still sustainable. Waiting for a protest is not enough to notice the person living beside us.
A conversation that stayed with me
Once, a colleague spoke to me with admiration about her husband’s passions. As I listened, I also saw the family responsibilities those activities left on her shoulders. I said that, in my view, he was selfish. She was deeply offended.
A judgement expressed that way can hurt and close down a conversation, especially when it concerns someone loved. Yet my observation came from a concrete question: how much space was left for her? How many of her wishes found a place in that life organised around her husband’s interests?
Years later, I learned that he had abandoned her and the children. I did not know the reasons: as far as I knew, there was no apparent explanation. The news made me think again about the imbalance I had noticed. It seemed that my concern had touched on something real; that did not allow me to know their whole story or to attribute the abandonment to his hobbies.
For me, that news was no occasion to take satisfaction in a judgement that might have been right. What mattered was what had happened to a woman and her children. And the fact that she had defended her husband did not make her responsible for the choice he would later make. Above all, the memory leaves me wishing that such questions could be addressed earlier, while there is still an opportunity to listen to each other and change habits.
Making room for both lives
Balance takes shape through concrete decisions. If one person devotes several hours on Saturday to their passion, when will the other have an equally free stretch of time? Who takes full responsibility for the children during that time, without continually asking for instructions? What time will we set aside to be together?
There is no need to count every minute. Needs change, some periods are more demanding, special occasions arise, and different passions need different amounts of time. What matters is being able to recognise reciprocity: knowing that our tiredness and our wishes carry weight in shared decisions.
We also need to protect family time. Lunch at grandmother’s all together, friends invited over and an unhurried Sunday are more than empty spaces to fill on a calendar. They are occasions when a shared story is built. Children need to know their parents in the ordinary moments of a day spent together as well.
A father caring for his children is carrying out his responsibility as a father. When he takes care of them, their mother can have personal time without feeling indebted for a favour. The same applies with the roles reversed: family life belongs to both partners.
What I would like to leave my children
My children, nurture what you love. Seek someone with whom you can talk about it and share the joy it brings. But when you get your bike or gym bag ready, or plan a trip to a match, look at what you are leaving to be done as well.
Ask yourselves whether the person you love gets to rest, see their own friends and pursue something of their own. Listen to the answer before it becomes exasperation. And remember to want time together too: a bond needs days lived together, as well as good intentions.
A passion finds its place when it also leaves room for other people’s lives. Before saying “I am going on Sunday”, try asking “What do you need on Sunday?”. Then make room for that answer in your plans.