Christian Patriarchy<\/a> that I did, but his mother doesn\u2019t work outside of the home and his parents have always embraced fairly traditional gender roles, so I really should have known better. Anyway, I simply wanted to know if Sean had started the load of laundry he had said he would, and to let him know that he would have to finish it the next morning because I was going to be out of the house with his sister.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve never done laundry in my life!\u201d Sean\u2019s father announced, leaning back and smiling as if his comment were funny.<\/p>\n
The atmosphere in the room tipped and I felt the brunt of everything that was going unsaid. I was being typed as the overbearing and selfish woman who forced her emasculated husband to do \u201cwomanly\u201d tasks like laundry. Sean was being typed as a man tied to his wife\u2019s apron strings, unable to stand up for himself against his wife\u2019s tyrannical demands. My blood began to boil.<\/p>\n
I make more money than he does.<\/em><\/p>\nThe room suddenly went silent. Had I simply thought that or had I actually said it?<\/p>\n
\u201cI make more money than he does,\u201d I repeated. My voice held an air of confidence that only anger could inspire, and my chin was set against the criticism. \u201cIf we\u2019re sharing the money making, it only makes sense that we would share household tasks like laundry and childcare. That\u2019s just commonsense. It\u2019s not trying to be mean about it or anything, but\u00a0I really do make more money than he does<\/em>.\u201d There were sparks in my eyes. I was mad<\/em>.<\/p>\nI told Sean later that I was sorry if my comments at the table had embarrassed him in front of his parents. He said it was fine \u2013 I honestly think he enjoys watching the sparks that fly when I come up against his father. The truth is, Sean is proud of me. He\u2019s proud that I am as successful as I am, he\u2019s proud of my ability to hold my own in a conversation, and he\u2019s proud of my passion. He did tell me that his father spend the rest of the evening making fun of him for making less money than his wife \u2013 all in good fun,<\/em> of course. But he also told me that it honestly doesn\u2019t bother him<\/em> that I make more money than he does.<\/p>\nAll I can think is, what kind of world do we live in that men who earn less than their wives are made fun of and women who work full time are still expected to do all of their family\u2019s laundry? How can anyone think this is good for either women or<\/em> men? I\u2019d like to imagine that things will be different for my preschool daughter Sally and my infant son Bobby when they grow up, but I\u2019m starting to wonder if we as a society will ever find a way to end these patterns. In the meantime, I suppose, I\u2019ll just have to go on scandalizing Sean\u2019s dad.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While at Sean’s parents’ house over the holidays, I made the mistake of asking Sean if he had started our laundry.\u201cI\u2019ve never done laundry in my life!\u201d Sean’s father announced, leaning back and smiling as if his comment were funny. The atmosphere in the room tipped and I felt the brunt of everything that was going unsaid. I was being typed as the overbearing and selfish woman who forced her emasculated husband to do \u201cwomanly\u201d tasks like laundry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,6],"tags":[135,106],"class_list":["post-11628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-feminism","tag-gender","tag-marriage-2"],"yoast_head":"\n
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