The Gender Debate cont'd

Lately, I have been having to remind myself that I am doing half the work.  That is, half the work that it takes to raise a family and run a “home”.  I do half, and Nathan does half.  But for some reason, Nathan gets paid, and I do not. 

I struggled with this concept – still do – as I find it quite a hard thing to be spending “someone elses money”.  Because of the circumstances of our living arrangements, I do not receive any parental leave pay nor do we get any government assistance.  We live solely on what Nathan brings home.  He is the sole bread winner.  I, like most other girls of my generation, have been working since I was a teenager, and got used to having disposable income, and not being too much accountable to anyone for my spending habits.  Now I find myself in a position where I have nothing of my own to spend.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying I have nothing to spend.  I’m saying its not my OWN.  A few other mums I have spoken with say that you get used to this feeling, and you don’t feel so guilty after a while.  And Nathan is constantly reminding me that, even though its his salary, the money actually belongs to the “family unit”.  His job is only half the work, by going to work each day to earn that money- my job is the other half – by running the household. 

Now somehow, in all the commotion and ruckus of the modern-day revolution, the emphasis on the importance of running a household has been down-played and undermined.  We are led to think that its no longer a full-time job, so mothers needn’t pursue it any longer as such.  And if they did choose to do such a thing, be prepared for almost no kudos or admiration or respect because it is no longer enough to warrant it!

This, in itself, is absurd. 

Here are some granted points for the opposition to this argument:

There are things we have today that we didn’t have in the past that makes a home run smoother.  Today we have dishwashers.  We have washing machines.  We have disposable nappies.  We have microwaves, electricity, convenience foods, and access to cheap clothing and homewares.  Gone are the days of homemade crafts, goods, or even daily baked bread and the like.  It just isn’t the norm anymore.  So without all these time-consuming things of the past, what keeps a homemaker busy in todays age?

Well.  I am learning as I go, but let me just note some observations….

Someone has to put in the time to “keep up” with the housework.  I quickly learned that there is no sense letting it build up on you – so it sort of fits in to babies routine like clockwork, if you want to stay on top of it.

 It takes planning to put healthy, balanced meals on the table every night that suit both parents and baby.  Meals with fresh food – no frozen foods or ready-made packet products, as these are often more expensive than starting from scratch!  New parents learn very quickly that this all becomes a juggling act, and you have to get creative!!  Babies aren’t at their best at “dinner-cooking” time…. So it is often wise to do all dinner prep (and all possible cooking) throughout the day.  Babies don’t eat curries, extremely rich food, spicy stuff and the like…. So sometimes babies get separate meals to mum and dad.  This means preparing “batches” of food for storing or freezing for babies requirements.  An unrewarding act if, when presented with the food, baby turns his nose up and decides its not good enough!!  Luckily, we don’t have that problem – our baby, so far, is a human vacuum cleaner – eats almost anything and everything put in front of him  - bar eggs.  He doesn’t do eggs.  Unless you fool him with French toast.  Yep I’m sneaky  – Mummy 1, Jack 0.

Babies don’t just require food and clean nappies – they also need plenty of time, love, patience, entertaining, and fresh air and sunshine.  These are the most important things about spending time with my child – and the reason for wanting to be a stay at home mum.  When you put all these things together, it fills in the day pretty quickly.

In our situation with only one income, obviously it cuts down on disposable income that we were used to in the pre-parenthood days.  As a stay-at-home mum, I am finding it my duty to do things such as: buy home brands at the supermarket.  Know what’s cheap and whats not for any particular grocery item.  Use cloth nappies to cut down on the cost of disposables.  Hang washing outside instead of using a clothes dryer.  Get handy with the sewing machine to do any and all alterations this family requires.  Be “crafty” with gifts – it just gets too expensive to go buy presents for everyone all the time!!  I have learned how to bake, how to cook, how to knit, hell we even started a garden in the back yard which I'm hoping, in time, will cut costs a wee bit on produce purchased from the supermarket.  At the end of the day it all adds up…. So not only do we get a bit of savings from these little things, but its also rewarding to me to know I am having a positive impact on the “bottom line”.  Which is ironic, because although I feel like I am creating savings, I am also the only one that spends the money in the first place! 

And who would have thought that I, Little Miss Gen Y, Little Miss Independent, Child of the 90’s (as Nathan calls me), would become such a domesticated, old fashioned, frugal, strict mum! 

And this is where I am convinced that its more than just learned behaviour.  Its more like instinct.  Engrained deep within me from previous generations.  I now somehow feel a close tie with my grandmothers and great grandmothers – the ladies of previous eras to whom being a housewife was very familiar. 

My mother, on the other hand, was not a house wife – she is very much a career woman – and I wonder if she scratches her head sometimes to see me reverted in such a short time into such a different person, habitually.

So, yes, Nathan earns a salary while I stay home and keep a house for him.  It doesn’t get more real than that.  Or boring, for some.  But the more we play this parenting game the more I am convinced that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.  Families have been operating like this for centuries and I just think that it’s a wonderful and balanced operation – it just works. 

Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge that some women have to go back to work to “make ends meet”.  (we are lucky enough that we don’t have to do this)..  And some women have to go back to work because they aren’t cut out to stay at home all day, every day.  But for me, it has just come to pass that it all feels perfectly natural.  Gender Roles work in this house.

Its true that I know how to use a drill, a screwdriver, a crescent, and an array of other tools to fix or make things.  But in this house, building toyboxes and garden planters is unspokenly Nathans job on a Saturday afternoon while I spend hours in the kitchen baking or cooking up batches of baby food.  I’m an electrician – but its Nathan that often replaces the lightbulbs or fixes the faulty electronics, while I do the cleaning and mend Jack’s clothes.  I was a confident member of the workforce not so long ago, yet when asked by other people “what we do”, I wait for Nathan to tell of his role as an engineer, and then happily let the conversation drift without needing (or hoping?) to inform anyone that I am (was?) an electrical fitter… I am content letting people assume that I am a “mum”.  Nothing else really matters, does it?

So in all my recent realizations about my true self, I am acutely aware of society’s expectation – and thus, the expectations of mothers upon themselves – that it doesn’t suffice to stay at home and raise your family.  You must get back into your career; be somebody; make something of yourself!  I have even heard people say “what a waste” about a young, successful woman that is putting her career on hold to have a baby.  It is the ultimate purpose in life.  We are all just animals, afterall.  We have an ability and an instinct to reproduce.  A woman has a womb for a reason – and should she choose to walk the path of domestic management as appose to business management, is it really such a pity?