Last night I met a woman who told me this:

 She rises at 6am, is at the pool by 6:30, works from 7:30am until 3pm. 

Her husband takes their two daughters to school every day. She collects them from school at 3:30pm, and is with them until they go to bed at 8pm.

She works from 8:30pm until 11.30pm. 

She does this every night with the exceptions of Friday and Saturday when she and her husband go out. 

She works all day Saturday while her husband cares for the kids. She looks after the kids all day Sunday. 

My first reaction, because it is always my first reaction when hearing about someone else's life, is to find myself deficient. Clearly I am a lazy, soft, disorganised individual, I thought. I moved swiftly to pity since this struck me as a terribly rigid and not very fun way to live. But when I said 'how awful' the woman shot me a look that combined contempt, boredom and confusion in an astonishingly efficient way, then said 'what do you mean?' Admittedly, it was an unthinking outburst on my part.

Therafter followed a conversation between aliens - clumsy, stilted, best not repeated in full. She did try to extol to me the virtues of her regime, one of which she was proud, but I just couldn't see it as anything other than joyless. While she spoke I was wondering when she allowed herself time to buy food, get a haircut, go to the dentist, visit a friend... But I imagine these things can be done with her children between the hours of 3:30 and dinner. 

 She loves to ski, and said this was what drove her to have two jobs. She works by day at a college, by night she does freelance advertising copywriting, so that for two weeks a year she and her husband can ski, and for another two weeks they can travel.

I wondered if she had German ancestors... they're a very methodical lot yes? And I wondered how her husband felt about this. Her drive would mean they'll end up with a lot more money than we will, but what if he didn't want to parent by himself every Saturday? When did they do things together as a family? What did he do every night while she locked herself up in her study to work till 11:30? 

Now, I am aware there's some latent sexism here in that if a man did this we've simply think he was a hard worker - a fairly distant and neglectful partner and father, but mostly a hardworking man. I wouldn't have grilled a man the way I grilled her...I don't think. Maybe because she's a woman she feels she needs to work this hard to prove herself. Maybe she's terrified of being financially dependent on a man. Maybe she want to be a role model wonderwoman to her daughters. Maybe it's all about control.

It did seem to me, though, that life is pretty short and while there's no perfect way to live it, forcing this many restrictions on yourself and your family is a regret waiting in the wings. I should say that we have structures of own own, as everyone does: employers expect us to arrive and leave at certain times, we get kids to and from school on time, our dog is walked daily, I go to an exercise class at the same time every week, my partner and youngest son play sports at set times each week and so on. But there is some degree of difference week to week. A friend's birthday here, a movie night there, a few late nights to meet a deadline, time spent in bed with a pile of magazines... 

But like I said, she'll end up with more money than us. We'll die in debt, she'll die in a mansion.