Several months ago, my family watched The Incredibles for movie night. My children, inspired by the idea of an entire family of superheroes, gave everyone in our house special powers. They anointed themselves with quite a few: flying power, killing bad guys and mice power {a power I only half-approved of}, super-speed power, putting bad guys in jail power {a compromise on the killing power}, and helping power.
“What power does Daddy have?” I asked.
“Running power!” they exclaimed of their dad who runs daily, even in subzero Minnesota winters.
“What power does Mommy have?”
Silence.
Scrunched-up thinking faces.
“Um…. Cleaning power!!!”
Awesome.
I grew up with Free to Be You and Me {“Some mommies are doctors, some daddies are bakers!!”} and Sassy magazine and a mom who read Women Who Run With the Wolves.
And now I am a woman who runs with the vacuum.
What the hell happened?
How did I go from this…
…to this?
For all my youthful, and sometimes raging, feminism, I have managed to settle into a marriage and family with fairly traditional gender roles. I cook, clean, make lunches, and supervise homework. My husband takes out the trash, shovels the driveway, and kills spiders {a power I completely approve of}. My son identifies the lawnmower as “daddy’s” and the Swiffer as “mommy’s.” The other day, when I told my daughter that Daddy was cleaning the garage of, ahem, mouse droppings, she said, “Yep, because Daddy deals with the mouse poop.” {He is truly my Superhero!}
But you know what? I’m okay with it.
I enjoy cooking {most of the time}. I like cleaning ~ it is calming and meditative and I LOVE a clean house. {And based on the number of people who find my blog by Googling “I love cleaning,” I know I am not alone.}
Not all of our responsibilities fall along traditional gender lines. My husband does the laundry. I take care of filing our taxes. My husband bathes the children. I do … some other chore that I can’t think of right now but that I am sure has masculine undertones.
“It seems likely, despite the emphasis placed on revolutionary upheavals by historians, that people are habitually quite conservative…. [P]eople do not put off their old way of life … except under strong incentive.”
R.R. Palmer, A History of the Modern World
I am reassured by the fact that cross-cultural anthropological research reveals that this division of labor in my home is quite common, even in societies that have not been exposed to gendered advertising and our cultural expectations of “women’s work.” Around the world, it’s often the men who hunt, go to war, and perform dangerous labor. It’s usually the women who cook, clean, and gather. {One theory is that women do the work that is compatible with childcare, and, due to “male expendability,” men do the things more likely to get someone killed. Because you only need a few men, but a lot of women, to keep the species around. That’s just science, folks.}
I like the division of labor in my household. I like that there are many tasks {like emptying the dishwasher, making the beds, or getting up at night with children} that we share. I like shopping gathering at Target. I’m okay with the fact that I have never once operated a snowblower or a lawnmower, because I’m sure they are really dangerous and I need to be protected to ensure the survival of humanity or something.
I do wonder how my children perceive our division of labor, especially when the greatest power they can give me is the power to clean. But then I remember that it’s my son, not my daughter, who runs for the toy vacuum to help me clean the house. My daughter loves to play with the toy lawnmower and shovel and join her dad in outdoor work.
Maybe they don’t even conceptualize these things in terms of gender the way I do. Could it be as simple as “Mommy does this, Daddy does that”? Not “women do this and men do that”?
I think of how different the contemporary landscape of gender and sexual orientation and marriage is for my children than it was for me. Just last year, after Minnesota legalized same-sex marriage, I watched my daughter play with her squinkies as Cinderella and Barbie got married. It was normal to her. But it certainly wasn’t traditional.
I’m certain that our actions, in addition to our words, have an impact on our children. I hope that my children can ultimately come to appreciate how nuanced these gender lines can be ~ that even though Mommy does the cleaning and wears makeup, that isn’t what it means to be a girl. Even though Daddy is the one who maintains the fireplace and changes the light bulbs, it doesn’t mean only boys can do the tough things.
Except killing spiders. Those things are deadly, ladies.
*****
This post is part of the Finish the Sentence Friday linkup. Today’s prompt is “We can either be traditional or nontraditional in how we do things, I…” Click the image below to read more posts! {Link will go live at 10pm EST Thursday.}
{Clorox ad credit:: The Gender Ads Project. Created by Scott A. Lukas, Ph.D. Created in 2002, South Lake Tahoe, California. Accessed on August 6, 2013.}
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