Patriarchal blogger Lori Alexander began a recent blog post with this quote from a marriage advice book:<\/p>\n
\u201cDirecting your husband\u2019s traffic undermines this goal by setting up a mother\/son relationship rather than a husband\/wife relationship. That\u2019s why the sex wanes. What kind of man wants to have sex with his mother? So, what does it mean exactly to not direct your husband\u2019s traffic? It means not making any comments\u2014ever\u2014about what you think your husband should be doing or how you think something should or shouldn\u2019t be done. If you find this difficult to do, keep in mind that every time you refrain from telling your husband what to do or how to do it, you\u2019re getting closer and closer to being loved and adored rather than being avoided or ignored. When a wife takes on the husband\u2019s role by demanding to be the one who\u2019s right and who\u2019s in control, the natural synergy between them dies.\u201d (From Suzanne Venker\u2019s new book \u201cHow to Be a Wife.\u201d)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Lori, of course,\u00a0loves\u00a0<\/em>the advice Suzanne Venker gives here. She\u2019s\u00a0ecstatic\u00a0<\/em>about it. I find that I have many, many<\/em> thoughts, and not all along the same lines. There\u2019s actually a lot going on here.<\/p>\nTake the bit about not being your husband\u2019s mother, for instance.\u00a0Many\u00a0<\/em>American women feel this way. I myself have found myself saying things along the lines of this to my husband: \u201cFor the love god, pick up your own socks, I\u2019m not your mother!\u201d The irony is that Lori\u2019s advice to me in this situation would be to close my mouth and lovingly pick up my husband\u2019s socks. Lori very often<\/em> teaches wives to act as their husband\u2019s mothers.<\/p>\nBut there\u2019s something else going on here.\u00a0Remember, Venker said that wives should stop telling their husbands \u201cwhat to do or how to do it.\u201d She calls that \u201cdirecting your husband\u2019s traffic.\u201d So let\u2019s talk about that!<\/p>\n
In modern America, wives are expected to be managers. Unpaid managers. Wives are expected to keep track of their family\u2019s social schedule, to keep track of what errands need to be done to keep the household running, to keep track of their children\u2019s social schedules and extracurricular activity schedules, and on and on. Wives are typically the ones that schedule the family\u2019s dentist appointments, doctor appointments, family photos, and so much more.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s interesting is that\u00a0I don\u2019t\u00a0like this either.\u00a0<\/i>But I happen to feel that the best way to push back against it isn\u2019t for wives to just stop doing it\u2014it\u2019s for husbands to step up and\u00a0start\u00a0<\/em>doing it. Not all of it of course. This kind of work should be shared. But it\u2019s actually\u00a0not great<\/em> that wives currently end up doing almost all of this sort of managing.<\/p>\nIt feels ironic, really, that I\u2019m responding to one of Lori\u2019s posts by suggesting that husbands take more<\/em> of a leadership role in their homes. But really, it\u2019s not about giving or taking leadership\u2014it\u2019s about\u00a0sharing\u00a0<\/em>it. Because this sort of leadership\u2014this management\u2014is actually a lot of work. Speaking of which, I don\u2019t think I agree with how Lori conceptualizes leadership. Leadership isn\u2019t about calling the shots. It\u2019s\u00a0work.\u00a0<\/em>And that\u2019s one of the reasons women have ended up with all this management authority foisted on them\u2014as work of the home, it\u2019s women\u2019s<\/em> work.<\/p>\nAnd I\u2019d like to see the work of the home\u00a0shared.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nAll of this makes me wonder just what Lori actually means in this post, however. For example, Lori writes as follows:<\/p>\n
Women, God is a patriarchal God and created men to be the leaders and the ones in authority. He didn\u2019t create women to do this. We are to rest in this, not fight it. Respect the position that the Lord has given to your husband. Stop second guessing him and begin trusting him. Try it for a couple of weeks and see what a difference it will make in your marriage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Does she mean that women should stop scheduling their family\u2019s doctor appointments, or signing their kids up for soccer and reminding their husband that there\u2019s a game this weekend? Or does she mean that this labor should still be done, but in a way that is invisible\u2014and that makes no demands on the husband? It\u2019s very unclear. And there are many men, who, if the wive vacates this managerial role, won\u2019t even think to step into it. Dental appointments will go unscheduled and the children won\u2019t take piano lessons. Is that what Lori is going for?<\/p>\n
At the beginning of each weekend, my husband and I make a list of things that need to be done. We write down chores, and errands, and projects, and then we assign these\u2014some to the children, and some to each other. We do this all together\u2014no surprises, no telling someone else what to do. It sometimes seems odd to me how very complicated Lori seems to want to make things that really shouldn\u2019t be all that complicated at all.<\/p>\n
I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In modern America, wives are expected to be managers. Unpaid managers. Wives are expected to keep track of their family’s social schedule, to keep track of what errands need to be done to keep the household running, to keep track of their children’s social schedules and extracurricular activity schedules, and on and on. Wives are typically the ones that schedule the family’s dentist appointments, doctor appointments, family photos, and so much more.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":49523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,43],"tags":[135,106],"class_list":["post-49522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","category-family","tag-gender","tag-marriage-2"],"yoast_head":"\n
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