I also have a tendency to get obsessed with new hobbies: boxing, barefoot running and, lately, tennis. Toby was very supportive of my decision to become a stay-at-home mum when I wasn't particularly enjoying my career. Or perhaps it's because I know I am capable of being quite selfish myself. In other words, whomever I married, the story would have been the same. Perhaps I instinctively knew what Dr Alexander Soutschek and his Zurich team have discovered, namely that men are naturally more selfish than women and become more so as they get older. We now have four children, aged 14, 12, 10 and nine, and not once has Toby (pictured left) got up with them in the morning to help with the school-runs, says Caroline Young (centre) You might wonder why I went on to marry Toby when he had revealed his true colours so early on in our relationship. He was shocked when I told him that was selfish and demanded he change his habits. When we were first married, he would come into the bedroom when I was fast asleep and switch on all the lights. And this is after years of husband-training. Not content with collapsing heavily into bed, he then starts watching television loudly on his iPad. What I do mind, though, is that he can afford to go to bed considerably later than me and every night when he comes into the bedroom he stomps around as he undresses. I don't resent this at all, as I gave up my job as a solicitor after Sasha was born and Toby does work tirelessly as a writer and broadcaster to support us all. He often has work dinners which means he doesn't get home until well after they have gone to bed, and he certainly doesn't know how to put on a wash. We now have four children, aged 14, 12, 10 and nine, and not once has Toby got up with them in the morning to help with the school-runs. The baby was promptly dropped in my lap and before I could scoop up my jaw from the floor, Anastasia had changed into a mini-skirt and the door had slammed behind them. Without pausing for breath, Toby turned to Anastasia, who was 20 years old, 5ft 9in tall with perfect skin and startlingly green eyes, and said: 'It's supposed to be great and it would be a shame to waste the ticket. On her second night she was supposed to babysit Sasha as Toby had theatre tickets to the hot new play in the West End.īut at the last minute I panicked about leaving the baby with someone and told Toby I thought it would be best if I didn't go. Anastasia arrived two weeks before the birth of our son. When I became pregnant again a year later, we decided to get an au pair. Not, I hasten to add, that he learned from his mistake. It was only after I unleashed my postpartum, psychotic, hormonally-charged monster that he realised the error he was making. I'm going to have to go and check into a hotel to get some sleep.' For even though I went into marriage with Toby with my eyes wide open, there have been times when he has behaved in such spectacularly selfish ways that I have been left speechless.įour days after the exhausting and physically draining experience of giving birth to our first child, Sasha, and while I was struggling to cope with breastfeeding, Toby - already sick of sleepless nights - declared: 'That's it! I'm just too tired. The male mind, on the other hand, is more egocentric, encouraging narcissistic acts over selfless ones. The study, which looked at the areas of the brain that are active when charitable decisions are made, found that the reward centre in the brain is more strongly activated in females when they do something friendly or helpful than something selfish. That women really are the kinder and more selfless sex. Researchers from the University of Zurich have finally proved what women the world over have known for years. Caroline Young (pictured left) is pictured with her husband Toby (centre) and their three children, Charlie, 9, Ludo, 12 and Fred, 10
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