Finding Our Place in the Modern Family

As a husband and father, Christopher Green doesn’t feel confined to traditional gender roles, and hopes more men will adjust to changing times.

For centuries our lives have been defined by traditional gender roles. Men work. Women stay at home. That way of thinking worked for millennia and has contributed largely to the dynamics of society. Back in the day, men were atop society in terms of status, earning power, visibility, education and obviously, physical stature. In a world where only the strong survived, it’s no wonder why men by default achieved that status. But one’s value cannot be determined by how many heavy things they can lift.

For millennia a man’s physical stature demanded that he be put out front to hunt, fight, build, and lead. In the previous ages the economy was defined by manual labor and industrialism. This world was built on construction, architecture, railroads, logging, digging, and most forms of hard labor. Because of that, women took a back seat and were relegated to making sure that the future labor force of the world was well adjusted and nurtured.

While the men worked, women took care of the home and children. Because men were out front, women became viewed as second class citizens. This goes all the way back to society’s infancy. Society viewed males as the most important commodity in the world. And at the time, they were sort of right. But times change, they always do.

A little history lesson:

The 60’s gave us the Women’s Liberation movement. As the industrial age gradually slowed, the demand for such man-defining tasks began to slowly decline. Women saw the world changing and realized that opportunity was attainable for them just as much as men. Women began to stand up and prepare for equal opportunity.

Education leveled the playing field. Even when men reigned supreme in the work force, men were largely uneducated; they didn’t need to be. One doesn’t need much education to weld or saw two-by-fours. Education was the woman’s ticket to equality.

When it comes to matters of the mind, women are equally as brilliant as men. For this no physical strength is required.  And with this new and emerging “threat” to the age old hierarchy of patriarchal society, women had to be protected.

On March, 22nd, 1972 the Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, once again bring women’s rights issues to national attention. Before that, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 passed, stating that both sexes had to be paid the same wages for the same type of jobs. Some industries and states lagged, and it took a while, but as time progressed into ascending decades, everything began to gradually change for the ladies.

Women became successful as CEO’s, entrepreneurs, athletes, politicians, and more. Instead of walking behind men, women soon were striding beside us, some even in front. Yet, with more equality still to be shared, all of this affects the way our homes function.

Class dismissed!

These days, especially after the economic collapse in 2008, more women are going to work, while unemployed men stay at home due to their jobs being downsized or liquidated. This introduced an interesting conundrum in modern society.

Now men found themselves in a most unfamiliar place, staying at home with the kids and being “Stay At Home Dads”. This new way of life presents an interesting set of new challenges to American families. How do we deal with this shift? How do we deal with modern gender roles?

The task for each individual is not so simple, as it requires a great deal of humility, fairness, cooperation, respect and understanding. The truth, however, is quite simple. Men and women must embrace this new shift in the family dynamic.

◊♦◊

With the modern family being reconstructed, there is a confusing struggle in our homes. That struggle is identity. Now men have to get up and get the kids ready, make breakfast, shuttle the kids to and from after school activities, cook and keep the house “man clean”. Because of this, many of us are lost.

Some of us refuse to yield to this new hand that life has dealt us because what we are asked to do is not defined as manly. It’s labeled as “woman’s work”. But just because women have traditionally taken on domestic tasks, does that make it “woman’s work”? I think not!

In the 1946 Broadway musical, “Annie Get Your Gun”, they sang a song, “Anything you can do I can do better. I can do anything better than you.” How true that song is. When it comes to providing for the family (my wife makes more money than I) or domestic tasks, anything a man can do a woman can do better and vice versa. But the problem comes with the delegation of these tasks.

The key to making this work lies in knowing areas of strength. Cleaning is not my strength. I keep the home “man clean”. If I can’t see it, it’s clean. Now whatever I clean, my wife can clean better. And she often does. My job is to make sure that everything is tidy until the real cleaning can be done.

My wife has a knack for seeing baskets full of clothes and knowing exactly where to start and where to put things. I do not. I’ll wash. I’ll dry. But I do not put away. Of course, if she needs me to then I start stuffing garments into random drawers.

I also regularly help with other chores. I tend to our three kids during the day and do my work at night. I keep the yard, take care of the cars, pay a lot of the bills, I handle home repairs and other “man” work. And in my role, like a lot of men these days, I found myself with diapers to change, lunches to make, doctor appointments to attend, daycare drops and pick-ups, grocery shopping and meals to prepare. I’m good at all of those things!

I’m the cook in my house. I’m the best at it. I have dinner ready most days when my wife walks in the door. My wife gets home around 5 and I start cleaning up and cooking at 4:30. Flawless Victory! We inadvertently stumbled upon how to make our house work because we always found ourselves doing what we do best.

◊♦◊

Fellas, choke on your pride, discover your strengths and embrace the role. Ladies, let him do it his way. We see things differently, therefore we do things differently. For what does it matter if the processes are different, so long as the end results are the same?

I’m not writing this to brag. I’m writing this to show that it can be done. It was a major struggle for me at first for all of the previous reasons mentioned. Sometimes I still struggle. But, this is how we survive in our modern world with these new gender roles.

I find that this is causing undue burdens in many families because a lot of men won’t yield and are too proud to put on an apron and whip up three meals a day. (Heck, you don’t have to cook, just feed the children!)

I admit that there is some teaching to be done and a lot of humility involved, but this new and modern family structure takes a lot of sacrifice and work. And that’s what being a family is; it means working together for the expected outcome of all our endeavors. If she can bring home the bacon, bro, you can fry it up in the pan. And everything about bacon is manly.

Photo: Martin Cathrae/flickr