MIND MOVES Marie MurrayWhat brings a statesman to his knees? What defeats the insuperable power? What buckles the man? What quenches his courage? What is the weapon of male destruction? Why family stress, of course!
According to Labour Peer Melvyn Bragg, family factors may have caused the prime minister, Tony Blair to consider resigning earlier this year. This announcement was made on the eve of the publication of the book The Goldfish Bowl, co-authored by Cherie Blair and Bragg's wife, Cate Haste, which describes the stresses of public gaze on family life.
The stress of family considerations on Blair may surprise those who construed the prime minister's less lively demeanour and ageing strain as rumination on the ethical exigencies of the war. Not so. Neither invasion nor retaliation, not even potential political annihilation made Blair falter. As his popularity waned, the tabloids turned, party members quit, credibility died and no spin could disguise the ruse de guerre surrounding the war, yet Blair appeared obdurate and resistant to stress.
But what man, however heroic, armoured and stoic in the face of workplace stress does not crumble before the invasion of family concerns? It is not the foreign foe but domestic stress that invades the lives of men. It would seem that the Blair family is no exception.
As more men and women struggle with the work-life balance, corporate accommodation, statutory and non-statutory family friendly arrangements are high on the agenda of employee mental and psychological health. The days of the 'long-hours' work culture must be numbered if family life is to survive, and domestic caring and sharing is to become the equal province of working men and women. Prime ministers are not exempt.
Modern men in power are learning what women have always known. There is no life, no occupation, no role more onerous or important than the parental one.
Aldous Huxley in Brave New World refers to "the appalling dangers of family life". He knew that creating a utopian society was chickenfeed compared to the demands of family. This is because family stress is the ultimate stress. It is not external to the self. It is inevitable in the intimate daily relationships and complex life-cycle stages that constitute family life.
By comparison, running government is easy. What woman could not run the family seamlessly if she had ministers for transport, education, finance, health, planning, justice and defence? Women (and, more recently and increasingly, men) who work at home do the driving, supervise study and juggle the money. They provide total healthcare, physical, psychological, nutritional and occupational. They must know about budget deficits and how to survive them, about fiscal rectitude and good investment of energy and time.
Think of the planning decisions required to allocate space fairly to competing siblings, of different temperaments, with diverse requirements, at different ages. Nor can law enforcement and justice be abstracts in family life. Women know that punishment and incarceration are inferior to restorative justice. For children, fairness is everything.
Mothers also know that when battle is threatened, when factions divide and when war talk begins, that is the time for diplomacy. Peace is not gained by threat. It is not gained by attacking the enemy but by understanding and discussion. The culprit is not taught by punishing the group, by threat or harshness but by firm and fair attention.
Negotiation means giving each side an opportunity to express its fear. Gentleness wins more wars than assault. Possessions are unimportant and sharing with the vulnerable needy child is often the more noble path. But parents need time and each other to parent together successfully. And men need stress-free access to family life.
The chronicles of powerful public men's achievements rarely include their fortitude and sensitivity in the face of family life. It should. Men who surrender to family needs are real men. They are wise men, to be admired, not despised.
For what keeps the world safe is when powerful men remember their families. When they look at their sons and will send no son to war, when laws are made to protect and respect their daughters, their equality, their person and definition: when parental leave and childcare provision is informed by holding their babies in their arms and healthcare for all is what they would wish their own families to receive.
Family life is not a weapon of male destruction. Deprivation of family is. To provide men with equal opportunity to be with their children may be their liberation from the subjugation of the role of sole breadwinner with its past exclusion from the emotional domain of family life.
Creon in Sophocles Antigone says of public figures: "Of course, you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgment, not 'til he's shown his colours, ruling the people, making laws." I think he was wrong. You cannot know a man completely until you have seen how he loves his wife, supports his sons, cherishes his daughters, protects his parents and translates this knowledge through personal and emotional life into social policy, corporate practice and political will.
Marie Murray is director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview, in Dublin.