Gender Rolling

Published in the Feminism and Motherhood issue (June 2006) of Off Our Backs: The Feminist Newsjournal.

"Where's his willie?"

My three year-old son, Luke, squinted at the fuzzy image on the ultrasound screen as Rael and I bit our lips to keep from smiling. The technician slid the transducer along my lubricated belly, and then paused when he found the position that brought the baby's genitalia into ghostly, but unmistakable, focus. "There isn't one," the tech said. "You're gonna have a baby sister."

Luke was stunned - he'd never considered that his sibling might be anything but a smaller, stinkier version of himself. My husband whispered "Wow..." but I was shocked into silence. My unspoken, desperate yearning for a daughter had awakened my superstition that if I uttered my wish (or even thought about it too much) it wouldn't come true. Yet here was the proof: it's a girl.

As much as I loved the boyish trappings and kinetic play of Luke's boyhood, I was ready for a little more quiet, feminine energy in our household. I'm not talking frills and tea parties - my feminist leanings sour me on most of the inane, cotton candy fluff marketed to little girls. No, my daughter would read and explore, as I had. She'd sit curled up on the couch, lost in The Secret Garden or The Chronicles of Narnia. While Luke and his dad dueled with light sabers, my daughter and I would creep around the yard, digging for fat earthworms and scanning the trees for wild birds.

I floated along, happily distracted by my mother-daughter fantasies, until it dawned on me that I'd be the one she'd be watching for clues about what it meant to be a girl, and, eventually, a woman. Me. Imperfect me. I'm not bad in the role model department - I'm a Berkeley graduate, a successful writer, a good mother and wife, and I can throw a ball - but I'm nowhere near the spiritually settled woman I want to be. Panic quickened my heartbeat. I better get it together, fast. I scanned my mental list of self-improvements to complete before the baby was born, and was horrified to find, at the top, before "Establish consistent religious belief," was "Become a better housekeeper."

Housekeeper? What the hell? I'm poised on the cusp of having a baby girl, and I suddenly want to go all June Cleaver? Absurd. I want my daughter to admire my strength, self-reliance, and confidence, not my ability to tuck bed sheets in with hospital corners.

I've never been what one might call a domestic goddess. My own less-than-spotless home, which I like to call "comfy," is more shabby than chic. I don't want live in a Better Homes & Gardens photo shoot, where people hesitate to sit down for fear of wrinkling the upholstery. So, I cultivate a little therapeutic messiness, just to keep it feeling natural.

Mmm hmmm. Right.

The truth is, I have yet to master the basics of home management. I forget to change the towels in the bathroom. My son may be wearing day-old underwear. Bills sit, unopened, on the kitchen counter. I'm dogged by a constant, maddening awareness that I've neglected something. It may be something unimportant, like the laundry sitting cold and wrinkled in the dryer, or something crucial, like the preschool registration or the mortgage payment. All these unfinished tasks take on equal weight in my mind, piling up one by one, slowly crushing me. My sleep is sometimes interrupted by little details hovering over my head like a swarm of mosquitoes. Other times I pause, defeated, as I look at the toys and bits of paper strewn throughout the house, and last night's dinner dishes piled in the sink. I'm not stupid. Why can't I do this?

Growing up, I never learned how to care for a house. My parents insisted I do a few chores here and there, but my mother - a housewife herself - was more interested in teaching me how to be inquisitive and adventuresome than domestic. I remember hearing her pad around the kitchen in a housecoat and flip-flops, making our lunch of tuna salad or Cup O'Noodles. We spent hours doing complicated craft projects and coloring wall-sized velvet posters with watercolor markers. We once drove fifty miles just to visit an ice cream shop with flavors like rose petal, zucchini, and pizza.

I remember the warmth - but also the frustration - that followed my mother around the house like a cloud of dust. As much as she loved motherhood, she hated being a housewife. This was obvious. The basics were covered, which is to say I never had to pour myself a bowl of Cheerios for dinner. But most surfaces in our house were covered with old magazines, junk mail, and grocery coupons. She hated to cook. Vacuuming was a major undertaking which she only attempted every few months. It's not that she wanted to get another job. My father had a fine, stable career as an engineer, and she felt her place was at home. But the drudgery of housework came with the wife-and-mother package. It was something to be endured, like one's period.

My domestic ineptitude went unnoticed (and was, indeed, irrelevant) for many years. At Berkeley, I lived in cooperative student housing where tidiness was considered fussy. During the early years of my marriage, my husband's and my full-time jobs kept us equally involved with the chores, and, before kids, there was never much to do. On a typical Saturday he'd sweep and dust, I'd clean the kitchen and the bathroom, and we'd head out for Thai food and a movie.

Then our son was born and I left work to care for him. This had always been the plan; Rael's job paid more, so it made sense for me to stay home. When Luke was older I'd go back to work part-time, and Rael would scale back to part-time work, and we'd live the dream of equal breadwinning and parenting. We had it all figured out.

I was totally unprepared for the culture shock of at-home motherhood. I had expected this to be simply the next logical stage in my life, which I would handle with relative ease, as I had college, working and new marriage. Suddenly, I faced yawning spans of hours with a short-tempered baby, growing piles of laundry, and a chilling sense of isolation.

Lack of sleep, hormones, and confusion about my new role pushed me into a state of profound turmoil, which my giddy, protective love for Luke only made worse. Somehow I had the idea that becoming a stay-at-home mother equaled the automatic, painless transformation into efficient homemaker. Shouldn't I just know how to keep the house humming along, magically tidy and organized? That I had no idea how to manage the domestic details was becoming abundantly, painfully clear. The last thing I wanted to do with any precious minutes of non-baby care was clean. Rael helped out when he got home, but I was still drowning in housework.

Logistically, things got easier as my son got older; I no longer had to mop the floor while holding a twenty five-pound infant. I also adjusted to the role of at-home parent through necessity and the support of my husband, my family, and other like-minded mothers. But even after Luke started preschool and I had twelve hours a week of free time, I spent it trying to fill myself back up by going out to lunch or calling friends or reading or wandering the streets, aimless. Going back to work wasn't yet viable - Luke still needed me at home, and Rael's career was taking off. And so I still found myself rushing around the house at the end of the day, frantically shoving coats back into the bulging hallway closet and scrambling eggs for dinner, again.

The modern egalitarian future I'd expected (and trained for) turned into a surprisingly traditional present. And even after four years of full-time parenting, I'm still underqualified for the job of home manager.

So what does this urge toward better housekeeping say about me? Should I be ashamed to call myself a feminist as I lean toward reinforcing the gender status quo? Am I a sheep following the herd in the nesting craze that made Martha Stewart an American institution? I'm not sure. I do see that when the chips are down and I have to teach my daughter the skills she'll need as a modern woman, my list includes critical thinking, chutzpah, basic mechanics, and how to use a Swiffer. Not exactly a page out of the feminist handbook.

Ironically, my husband's housekeeping skills are much sharper than mine. He likes cleaning. He doesn't attach the baggage to housework I do - it's simply a job to be done, not a form of oppression. Many Saturdays I watch him tugging the vacuum from room to room with our son following along, swiping at furniture with a feather duster, and I'm grateful for what Rael is teaching Luke about becoming a man.

I'm coming to realize that the clash between my ideology and my reality has less to do with gender roles, and more with a simple desire to endow my daughter with the skills I lack. My domestic blundering has drained time and energy away from activities I value and enjoy. I don't want her to fall into the same trap should she decide to stay at home with her (hypothetical) children.

In the end, how I raise my kids, and what I teach them about how they fit into society - and how they can change it - is ultimately the biggest statement I'll ever make about how I see the world, and what I hope it will become.

I want to present my best self to my children. Not a shiny façade of perfection, but an authentic example of someone who's dealing with her personal struggles. At the moment, I struggle to clean my house. In some strange way I'm grateful; I know these difficulties, while valid, are relatively minor. The world will inevitably dole out more painful challenges in the years to come.

Hopefully, when it's time for them go out into the world, both my kids will know how to cook a meal, change a tire, clean a bathtub, mow a lawn, and balance a checkbook. They'll also know how to lose themselves in a book, climb trees, babysit, make and keep friends, and bask in the love of their family. And hopefully, by that time, I will have reached some sort of truce in the battle with my house, and with how I see myself as a mother and a woman.

Comments

[Jenn]

Oh, what a beautiful, beautiful essay. You make it look so easy.

P.S. Thanks for the very kind words and link!

[Mom101]

This is just fantastic Asha. Wow, I love your long-form writing. You speak for me in so many ways. I'm not a domestic goddess, not nearly. And it's not that I want her to be, but like you, I want her to learn everything.

I think we just have to accept that part of our job as mothers is also to teach our kid how not to be too, whether we intend to or not.

[Jim]

Wow.

I had a few minutes at work and was checking out Parent Hacks when I wondered what you wrote on your personal blog. Then I stumbeled on to your essays linked to the side.

This is the first that I have read and it was remarkable.

You have a very good insight into your own life and, if the philosophers are to be listened to, it is worth living.

A tremendous read. It made my day; especially the last paragraph. I want my son to grow to be able to do all those things to which I would only add that I want him to have the ability to love unconditionally and the willingness and strength to offer a helping hand to his fellow man in need.

[sian stancombe]

You are so lucky!I have been waiting to hear the news at the ultrasound scan that I was expecting a girl for the last three babies!I am currently pregnant with our 4th son!I too am a career girl who fully expected to have the more traditional 1 boy,1 girl family as I had come from.I still long to pass on any lessons I have learned from life to a daughter but don't know if I'll be given the chance.I adore my boys but there is only a certain amount of my knowledge and experience of life that I feel is relevant to them.

[Shelley]

I too came from parenthacks. I love this essay, and thought I was the only one who had hours with a cranky baby yawning in front of them...and no desire to clean! I thought on my maternity leave I'd have a spotless house, HAH! :)

[Mark Vane]

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