The house husband bites back

The kids are back at school. The Easter holidays are fading into distant memories of endless games of snakes and ladders, Connect Four and too many chocolate eggs. The breakfast detritus is cleared, beds made, the first load of washing on.

Sitting at the kitchen table I settle down to read the paper, the reassuring hum of dishwasher and washing machine lulling me into a sense of peace after the heated argument with my daughter about apple or blueberry-flavoured snack bars at the school gates. But when my eye catches the headline "House husband loses", for a surreal moment I think it's referring to me - losing my sanity, dignity and, humiliatingly, the argument with a six-year-old. All in front of the conspiracy of mums at the school - sighing, clucking and shaking their heads knowingly.

In fact, it's a news story about a house husband losing custody over his children in a divorce case. The judge felt that he could not ignore the "realities of the very different traditional functions of men and women" and that the mother who had sacrificed the opportunity to provide fulltime care for her children, by staying in her £300,000-a-year job, should be allowed to think again about her priorities. That is, giving up her job, moving out of London with the children and replacing the father as the primary carer.

Presumably, Lord Justice Thorpe neglected to consider the career sacrifices that the father might have made, in order to commit himself to his family.

As another day of house husbandry stretches ahead, I occasionally sneak a peak at my previous life and wonder how it could have been.

As a film editor I had the kudos of a job in a sexy industry, and could hold forth about British film at dinner parties, was privileged to travel and sometimes stay in nice hotels. These days people are more likely to ask for my advice on nit shampoo and leak-proof beakers. The closest I get to a nice hotel is a phone call from my wife Clare on a publishing trip.

But weighing it all up, I can say I made the right decision, despite having had to fight the view of the judge in the custody battle that men just aren't as good as women when it comes to the home and the family. It was that same ignorance that convinced my friends, family and acquaintances that I was mad. The day I returned from work in a foul mood, fed up with my career, and determined on a lifestyle change, I think I must have been a bit mad. I announced I was giving up a comfortable salary, respect from my peers, a respected job - and the nanny. I was to become a house husband.

Two years later, and to everyone's amazement, I am still a house husband. In fact as I pack the school bags each morning - two break boxes, one lunch box, one envelope containing dinner money, 15 birthday-party invitations, a tennis racket and a PE kit - it amazes me too.

Of course, two years on the school run is a bit easier. I've learnt to ignore being stared at by the mums outside the nursery and to hold my head high in the playground. For the most part they're used to me. But it took time and, dare I say it, a little courage as I tried to convince teachers and mums alike that I was not a professional failure, a weirdo, or trying to seduce them when I invited their daughter to come for lunch with mine.

It was my first coffee morning at the nursery when I realised this wasn't going to be easy. Embarrassed with chat about pregnancies, births and home-made Play-Doh and feeling ridiculous contributing to the discussion about blinds from John Lewis, I left early, feigning a dental appointment. I could almost hear the sigh of relief. I imagined them bursting into laughter and whipping out Ann Summers catalogues as the door shut behind me.

But my lonely walk home was a moment of truth. I would have to come to terms with feeling abnormal and a little isolated. In fact, just how women in the workplace must have felt 30 years ago. The other problem was the horror and disbelief at dinner parties. That dreaded question: "So what do you do?" would be tempered in some way by talking about what I used to do, so people would think I was taking a sabbatical before I returned to work. Because, as everyone knows, looking after children isn't working, is it? So how come it's so bloody exhausting?

Gradually, a strange thing happened. I stopped worrying about my incompetence at fixing ponytails and hiding the fact that I'm a smoker. I started to enjoy the walk to school and seeing how many times we could count to 100 between the end of our road and the gates. I started to treasure their delighted little faces when I went to pick them up and handed them each a Jaffa Cake. I was undeniably proud when my eldest read in front of the school assembly. I'd be lying if I didn't admit there are some things I miss. Nice lunches, the thrill of a new job, the camaraderie of a film crew. But these are nothing as to the new pleasures my family have brought since I actually started to be with them. So at a dinner party now, I don't skirt the issue, and feel that I can proudly say: "I am a house husband. And I love it." Most of the time. Actually, it can be hell, but it's better than my life before.

Thanks to the progress of women in the workplace, it is possible for men to progress in the domestic environment and to confront their neglected roles as fathers. Surely the era of the absent, uninvolved father - the "traditional function of men" that Lord Justice Thorpe referred to - is over. Moreover, if he wants men to return to their traditional functions, does he want women to return to theirs too?