Saturday, September 8, 2007
A Word on Gender Responsibilities
In this modern day and age the gender boxes of the past have been broken, the lines have been blurred and the the responsibilities of the mother and the father are no longer clearly defined. In the past, stay and home dads did not exist. That was the past. What about working moms? Today they are ubiquitous. I think there are many reasons for this. A family that doesn't share the burden of child rearing will not survive. This means moms sometimes have to work, dads sometimes have to cook or clean. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good thing... mostly. The gender boxes of the past gave each parent a well defined role, a well defined sense of responsibility. A mother who stayed home to raise the children did not feel a need to bring in money in order to feel like a contributing piece of the family. She knew that what she was doing every day in the home was her contribution. This is not so today. A modern woman seems to think that they need to be bringing in money, to be equal to a man. I understand the need to feel independent, but independence is not what marriage and family is about, it is about inter-dependence. In my eyes, a mother should feel as much pride in her job at home as a man does with his in the workplace. The opposite is true as well, if a man is a stay at home dad, he should feel pride in what he does and no shame that it is his wife that is bringing in the income. The modern person needs to take pride in their contribution to the family, not worry about what the societies of the past said about the responsibility of their respective gender. This is a brave new world we live in, one in which there are single dads and single moms, working moms and stay at home dads. Embrace the present and prepare for the future.
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2 comments:
Jeff, I always felt proud to be at home and raise you children, I know that some women think they need to work outside of the home, but I feel that the job that they do in the home is more demanding and more rewarding. You can not put a price on a child that always felt love and secure. I thank God that I was able to stay at home and raise my children.
Love Mom
This is very well said. Thank you for being a voie of reason.
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