Traditional roles for men and women

[Xantippe]

Frankly, everyone now is spoiled. Stay at home parents didn’t have the modern luxuries we have today that makes taking care of the home relatively easy, and the men don’t have to toil in the fields 80 hours a week.

One tricky issue is that there’s a lot of expectations creep. The moment some piece of labor savings technology is introduced, the standards for cleanliness suddenly shoot up or new work is introduced. There’s actually a whole book written on this very subject–Ruth Cowan’s More Work for Mother:

barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1110951389?ean=9780465047321

You can compare the effect of technology on the household to the way that computers don’t actually reduce work for office workers–but they do make office workers more productive.

Here are some examples of issues with how modern technology and culture are not necessarily labor-saving:

–We have washers and dryers at home, but we have lots more clothes to deal with than our ancestors did. In our society, it isn’t currently acceptable to wear the same unwashed clothes all week. If it were, the garment would only need to be washed once a week.
–We have lots of convenience foods–but new mothers get browbeaten into making their own baby food (or do it to save money).
–There’s a whole parenting philosophy encouraging mothers to kill themselves trying to breastfeed, carry their babies and toddlers around all the time, and do other things completely antithetical to saving labor. (Some people find it genuinely easier, of course.)
–All labor-saving, convenience and safety devices need to be taken care of. The car needs to have oil changed, tires rotated and periodically have the cracker crumbs vacuumed out. The vacuum needs to be emptied. The dryer hose needs to be cleaned out for safety and so the dryer functions. The HVAC filters need to be changed. The smoke detector and CO2 detector need fresh batteries. Etc., etc.
–The geography of US workplaces and homes makes for a lot of driving, both commuting to work and just driving to the pharmacy, to the doctor, to the grocery store, etc.
–The job of educating children is less and less something that parents can expect to just hand over to school. In the worst case scenario, school is a disaster, and parents have to take things into their own hands–in which case, there’s going to be a lot of work involved. In the “best” case scenario, school is academically sound, but soaks up much of the family’s time at home with various demands and projects. I snapped once a couple years back when one of my oldest child’s teachers asked us to send in a paper bag of a particular size for a book cover. Allegedly, you could just ask for one at the grocery checkout. My husband went to two different large grocery stores and asked for a bag at checkout–they didn’t have them. So, we could theoretically have bought a container with 30 or so large paper bags, but at that point, I emailed the teacher and told the story and told him we were done. He had no idea. Contemporary school life at “good” schools often involves that sort of wild goose chase. Even just keeping up with the emails and paperwork from school for my two big kids is a major headache.
–Mandatory school service.
–Unlike in the past, parents are expected to monitor school-age children round the clock.
–Extracurriculars. That wasn’t yet a thing when I was growing up (at least not in our area), but it is now. We can always say, bah, who needs them?, but unfortunately, they do seem to be good at keeping kids out of trouble.

 

[E_7]

Where do the traditional roles for family come from (men make money, women to raise children, generally speaking)? Furthermore, how do we know that those roles are what God wants each gender to play in society?

Read The Word of God written in the book of Genesis and Proverbs. To sin is to disobey God. I don’t think God prohibited women to work nor men to be stay at home dads nor vice versa. Back in the old days, women worked from home and gathering too. Men worked from home or far away too. But how do we know that working from home or working outside home is what God wants from us? You see? Same reasoning. Doesn’t make sense. We live according to our needs.

 

[SWolf]

–We have washers and dryers at home, but we have lots more clothes to deal with than our ancestors did. In our society, it isn’t currently acceptable to wear the same unwashed clothes all week. If it were, the garment would only need to be washed once a week.

It is still far faster, and the washer and dryer do most of their work without supervision. Taking a load downstairs, separating, putting them in the washer, then putting them in the dryer when done, then folding and putting them away takes 45 minutes to an hour, tops. This does not even have to be done every day.

–We have lots of convenience foods–but new mothers get browbeaten into making their own baby food (or do it to save money).

I can make a stir-fry from scratch in 20-25 minutes. Spaghetti and a multitude of other dishes I can make in a similar amount of time. Do things right, and you make enough for two meals, increasing efficiency.

Even simpler meals, like sandwiches, can be done in 10.

–There’s a whole parenting philosophy encouraging mothers to kill themselves trying to breastfeed, carry their babies and toddlers around all the time, and do other things completely antithetical to saving labor. (Some people find it genuinely easier, of course.)

It is easier. My wife carries the baby all the time wen she needs to get stuff done. Sometimes I do the same when she is busy. The baby is happier than in a play-pen and requires less attention. Breast-feeding has been proven to be superior than other methods. If the mom can, she should. If she can’t it doesn’t mean she’s a failure.

–All labor-saving, convenience and safety devices need to be taken care of. The car needs to have oil changed, tires rotated and periodically have the cracker crumbs vacuumed out. The vacuum needs to be emptied. The dryer hose needs to be cleaned out for safety and so the dryer functions. The HVAC filters need to be changed. The smoke detector and CO2 detector need fresh batteries. Etc., etc.

All of which do not have to be done often and are miniscule compared to time saved.

–The geography of US workplaces and homes makes for a lot of driving, both commuting to work and just driving to the pharmacy, to the doctor, to the grocery store, etc.

Most places have a grocery store within a few miles, ours is three blocks away. Imagine how long it would take without a car? I’m sure far longer.

–The job of educating children is less and less something that parents can expect to just hand over to school. In the worst case scenario, school is a disaster, and parents have to take things into their own hands–in which case, there’s going to be a lot of work involved. In the “best” case scenario, school is academically sound, but soaks up much of the family’s time at home with various demands and projects.

Compulsory education is a new phenomenon. The parents used to teach the parents everything. Even in home-schooling, which only 3 percent of parents do, the parents only require a few hours a day of direct hands-on work.

–Mandatory school service.

The hours required from private schools in my area are reasonable.

–Unlike in the past, parents are expected to monitor school-age children round the clock.

This is a valid point, and ridiculous. Kids should be able to run around without supervision much younger that what is culturally expected.

–Extracurriculars. That wasn’t yet a thing when I was growing up (at least not in our area), but it is now. We can always say, bah, who needs them?, but unfortunately, they do seem to be good at keeping kids out of trouble.

Agreed. Don’t have to do them. Some in moderation are okay.

I have done all the following household tasks with babies, other people’s children, etc. and always had hours of free time after all the necessary work was done.

If there really is a problem getting all this done, I would chalk it up to needing better time management or, if a large family, getting the kids involved to help…

 

[pensmama87]

It is still far faster, and the washer and dryer do most of their work without supervision. Taking a load downstairs, separating, putting them in the washer, then putting them in the dryer when done, then folding and putting them away takes 45 minutes to an hour, tops. This does not even have to be done every day.

I can make a stir-fry from scratch in 20-25 minutes. Spaghetti and a multitude of other dishes I can make in a similar amount of time. Do things right, and you make enough for two meals, increasing efficiency.

Even simpler meals, like sandwiches, can be done in 10.

It is easier. My wife carries the baby all the time wen she needs to get stuff done. Sometimes I do the same when she is busy. The baby is happier than in a play-pen and requires less attention. Breast-feeding has been proven to be superior than other methods. If the mom can, she should. If she can’t it doesn’t mean she’s a failure.

All of which do not have to be done often and are miniscule compared to time saved.

Most places have a grocery store within a few miles, ours is three blocks away. Imagine how long it would take without a car? I’m sure far longer.

Compulsory education is a new phenomenon. The parents used to teach the parents everything. Even in home-schooling, which only 3 percent of parents do, the parents only require a few hours a day of direct hands-on work.

The hours required from private schools in my area are reasonable.

This is a valid point, and ridiculous. Kids should be able to run around without supervision much younger that what is culturally expected.

Agreed. Don’t have to do them. Some in moderation are okay.

I have done all the following household tasks with babies, other people’s children, etc. and always had hours of free time after all the necessary work was done.

If there really is a problem getting all this done, I would chalk it up to needing better time management or, if a large family, getting the kids involved to help…

There is also the reality that a lot of these skills are not taught - especially re: food prep, in my opinion. I am pretty driven and naturally organized and interested in efficiency, and necessity being the mother of invention (we have very limited means), I do a lot of the “extreme” stuff and it doesn’t feel that extreme to me. It’s just life. One of the books I have on child development, actually, discusses the ability to prioritize and manage tasks as “executive functioning.” For parents of children with certain developmental problems they’re probably very familiar with the term, but doing the assessments for myself I realized that I’m, for whatever reason, very high functioning, and not everybody is.

(Though, I’ve felt guilty the past few months using the dryer when I normally line dry in the summer. Our electric bill definitely shows this as well as the lower temperature I set the A/C on. If we had no A/C, yeah, nothing would have happened this summer. I imagine there’s a reason summer is considered the season of leisure - it’s very hard to do intense work in the heat.)

It’s also very different when you have all “littles.” I had to let a lot of things go when I was in early pregnancy this time because I was so sick, and now I’m so uncomfortable that lots more things are going. But I have the benefit of a good support network of friends and relatives who live nearby who aren’t totally crazy. In a few years, yes, I think my children will be incredibly capable of doing quite a lot. But not right now - while we’re learning and practicing (bed-making, table-setting, putting all toys away, dusting and sweeping), we’re still very much in the beginning stages of “child [actually] helps.”

 

[SWolf]

It’s also very different when you have all “littles.” I had to let a lot of things go when I was in early pregnancy this time because I was so sick, and now I’m so uncomfortable that lots more things are going. But I have the benefit of a good support network of friends and relatives who live nearby who aren’t totally crazy. In a few years, yes, I think my children will be incredibly capable of doing quite a lot. But not right now - while we’re learning and practicing (bed-making, table-setting, putting all toys away, dusting and sweeping), we’re still very much in the beginning stages of “child [actually] helps.”

Pregnancy is brutal. A young starting family before the oldest child is old enough to take over is also more difficult. A child with developmental problems is another beast altogether.

Not everything is a cakewalk, but all of us, working and stay at home, have it very easy by historical standards.

 

[Xantippe]

It’s also very different when you have all “littles.” I had to let a lot of things go when I was in early pregnancy this time because I was so sick, and now I’m so uncomfortable that lots more things are going. But I have the benefit of a good support network of friends and relatives who live nearby who aren’t totally crazy. In a few years, yes, I think my children will be incredibly capable of doing quite a lot. But not right now - while we’re learning and practicing (bed-making, table-setting, putting all toys away, dusting and sweeping), we’re still very much in the beginning stages of “child [actually] helps.”

I think there are three phases for normally developing children:

1. child has to be monitored at all times and has to have all of their basic needs cared for
2. child doesn’t need to be monitored at all times and does some self care, but isn’t much help otherwise
3. child is able to care for himself/herself and is a lot of help

How quickly you move from #1 to #3 is going to depend a lot on the child. My oldest, for example, is on the autism spectrum and still needed to be dressed for school (and dragged to the car) at 7. Meanwhile, in the neighboring bedroom, her 4-year-old brother was quietly dressing himself.

I went into parenthood expecting the instant perfect homeschooling Catholic family of 4-6 children. As I’ve mentioned before, it was a bit of a shock to discover exactly how long it takes to get children that can be a real help, especially since my oldest has special needs. I’m there now (my two big kids are helpful with the youngest, the oldest cooks, and both big kids are good at tidying and can put away clothes and unload the dishwasher when reminded and also do projects like wash windows, vacuum out the car, or yardwork when appropriately compensated), but my kids are 13, 10 and almost 3. It has taken that long to get to the point where I feel OK about leaving my big kids with the baby loose in the house while I go take a shower. I wouldn’t have done it a year ago–although I might have left one of the big kids penned up with the baby in the playroom.

I’m really impressed with the stuff my big kids are starting to be able to do at home (the window washing was particularly nice), but it does require very heavy supervision and help.

 

[Xantippe]

It is still far faster, and the washer and dryer do most of their work without supervision. Taking a load downstairs, separating, putting them in the washer, then putting them in the dryer when done, then folding and putting them away takes 45 minutes to an hour, tops. This does not even have to be done every day.

I can make a stir-fry from scratch in 20-25 minutes. Spaghetti and a multitude of other dishes I can make in a similar amount of time. Do things right, and you make enough for two meals, increasing efficiency.

Even simpler meals, like sandwiches, can be done in 10.

It is easier. My wife carries the baby all the time wen she needs to get stuff done. Sometimes I do the same when she is busy. The baby is happier than in a play-pen and requires less attention. Breast-feeding has been proven to be superior than other methods. If the mom can, she should. If she can’t it doesn’t mean she’s a failure.

All of which do not have to be done often and are miniscule compared to time saved.

Most places have a grocery store within a few miles, ours is three blocks away. Imagine how long it would take without a car? I’m sure far longer.

Compulsory education is a new phenomenon. The parents used to teach the parents everything. Even in home-schooling, which only 3 percent of parents do, the parents only require a few hours a day of direct hands-on work.

The hours required from private schools in my area are reasonable.

This is a valid point, and ridiculous. Kids should be able to run around without supervision much younger that what is culturally expected.

Agreed. Don’t have to do them. Some in moderation are okay.

I have done all the following household tasks with babies, other people’s children, etc. and always had hours of free time after all the necessary work was done.

If there really is a problem getting all this done, I would chalk it up to needing better time management or, if a large family, getting the kids involved to help…

I lost the draft of a long reply earlier today, but here are some notes:

1. There’s a vast difference between a single person’s laundry and a family’s laundry. Once you get to four or five people in a house, it turns into a semi-industrial affair (think Lucy at the chocolate factory).

youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI

For five people in our house, I do a minimum of two loads a day. If I accidentally skip a day or we come home from a trip or my husband comes home from a trip with a bag of dirty clothes, it gets very hard to catch up.

To get an idea of how industrial laundry can get for a really large family, here is the Duggars’ laundry room:

tlc.com/tv-shows/19-kids-and-counting/videos/laundry-room-tour/

I think the Duggar daughter mentions “only” 6 loads a day for the family, but those are front-loaders, so you can fit a lot more in each load–sometimes up to twice as much. Those are huge machines.

1. You sound like an awesome cook. You should cook every night.
2. I loved carrying my middle child in a sling when I was a sweet young thing of 29 or 30 with a toddler. However, although I was looking forward to carrying my youngest, it turned out that my middle aged body just couldn’t deal with carrying her around, even when she was tiny (my back was killing me). Later on, my podiatrist told me not to carry her when she was a toddler. So, all done with that.
3. Re: driving.

You’re forgetting that at mid-century, the average housewife had delivery of perishables to her door. It wasn’t an extravagance, it was the normal thing to get milk or ice or meat delivered to your door.

Also, the grocery store is just one of a dozen locations that the normal middle class US family needs to drive to regularly. This gets to be more of an issue the bigger your kids get.

1. We try to do extracurriculars in moderation, but once you have mandatory CCD, mandatory school play practice, mandatory competitive school sports, etc. and once you have 2+ school age children, even a single weekly extracurricular per child for a thing the child actually loves has the potential to do monstrous things to the family schedule.
2. Now that we have 3 kids, I am more and more convinced that normal middle class life in the US is designed for the 2 kid spaced 2.75 years apart family. I Tiger Mommed pretty well when I had one and then two kids in school (even with one special needs child), but for the past 4 or so years (ever since my 3rd pregnancy that miscarried and then my 4th pregnancy that took), I’ve been faking it. That mostly works, but every so often there’s some sort of major fail. (Like this week, when my husband and I realized that Big Girl has been spacing out on turning in homework assignments–fortunately, I’m on top of things enough to be able to log onto the school grade system from time to time.) So, I get why people have their 2.0 kid families. It works, it’s easier, you don’t permanently nuke mom’s earning potential, you can keep up with school stuff, etc. There’s a reason why Amy Chua has 2 kids, not 8.

 

[EasterJoy]

You nailed it. The current norm of ANYONE being away from the home is a relatively new phenomenon. Men are biologically stronger and more aggressive, which meant they did the hard labor and they only left when they went to war when necessary, unless they were very wealthy. Women are biologically more suited to taking care of the children and detail work(smaller hands), so that’s exactly what they focused on, as well as helping their husbands in their work when needed.

Frankly, everyone now is spoiled. Stay at home parents didn’t have the modern luxuries we have today that makes taking care of the home relatively easy, and the men don’t have to toil in the fields 80 hours a week.

Traditional roles was not about oppression, but survival. I fail to see how either task is somehow less noble.

Men who toiled in the fields 80 hours a week quite commonly ate all three meals with their families, and–let us be blunt–they did as little work as the welfare of their livestock would allow on Sundays. (By “let us be blunt,” I mean that many Christians use Sundays to do servile work around their homes.) Women, meanwhile, did physical work on a level that many of today’s men could not keep up with.

When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls…She is girt about with strength, and sturdy are her arms. (Prov. 31:10, 17)

I would not say we are “spoiled” with regards to work, however. The advent of artificial lighting has extended the work day far beyond what it used to be, while our typical isolation from both our families and our social and religious circles during the work day is much more stressful.

If I remember correctly, the advent of “labor-saving devices” resulted not in less work for those who did housekeeping, but higher standards. The number of hours spent at housekeeping did not go down. Go figure!

 

[Xantippe]

I would not say we are “spoiled” with regards to work, however. The advent of artificial lighting has extended the work day far beyond what it used to be, while our typical isolation from both our families and our social and religious circles during the work day is much more stressful.

Right.

When there’s a big power outage, you can see how our ancestors lived. When there’s no daylight and you only have a few candles, there’s not a lot of point in staying up.

Our ancestors had heavier physical work, but slept more than we do.

 

[1990Domer]

Warning to the OP: These gender role threads never end well.

No, they don’t, but we model our family based on the Holy Family. We do not hold to strict gender roles, but he is the wage-earner and I take care of my son and any ancillary needs either my son or husband have. It’s a team effort.

 

[Sarcelle]

If we as Catholics, and in the larger context as Christians, care about traditional roles, we need to do these things:

1. Prioritize family
2. Make the home the center for the family
3. Have families come together to create communities

People were never meant to be islands.

Bring back the extended family. Easier said than done in this highly mobile society.

With the extended family everybody had a place, singles, marrieds with or without children. I remember happy days playing with my cousins, confiding to my aunts and uncles when my parents and I did not see eye to eye.

 

[Sarcelle]

One tricky issue is that there’s a lot of expectations creep. The moment some piece of labor savings technology is introduced, the standards for cleanliness suddenly shoot up or new work is introduced. There’s actually a whole book written on this very subject–Ruth Cowan’s More Work for Mother:

barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1110951389?ean=9780465047321

You can compare the effect of technology on the household to the way that computers don’t actually reduce work for office workers–but they do make office workers more productive.

Here are some examples of issues with how modern technology and culture are not necessarily labor-saving:

–We have washers and dryers at home, but we have lots more clothes to deal with than our ancestors did. In our society, it isn’t currently acceptable to wear the same unwashed clothes all week. If it were, the garment would only need to be washed once a week.
–We have lots of convenience foods–but new mothers get browbeaten into making their own baby food (or do it to save money).
–There’s a whole parenting philosophy encouraging mothers to kill themselves trying to breastfeed, carry their babies and toddlers around all the time, and do other things completely antithetical to saving labor. (Some people find it genuinely easier, of course.)
–All labor-saving, convenience and safety devices need to be taken care of. The car needs to have oil changed, tires rotated and periodically have the cracker crumbs vacuumed out. The vacuum needs to be emptied. The dryer hose needs to be cleaned out for safety and so the dryer functions. The HVAC filters need to be changed. The smoke detector and CO2 detector need fresh batteries. Etc., etc.
–The geography of US workplaces and homes makes for a lot of driving, both commuting to work and just driving to the pharmacy, to the doctor, to the grocery store, etc.
–The job of educating children is less and less something that parents can expect to just hand over to school. In the worst case scenario, school is a disaster, and parents have to take things into their own hands–in which case, there’s going to be a lot of work involved. In the “best” case scenario, school is academically sound, but soaks up much of the family’s time at home with various demands and projects. I snapped once a couple years back when one of my oldest child’s teachers asked us to send in a paper bag of a particular size for a book cover. Allegedly, you could just ask for one at the grocery checkout. My husband went to two different large grocery stores and asked for a bag at checkout–they didn’t have them. So, we could theoretically have bought a container with 30 or so large paper bags, but at that point, I emailed the teacher and told the story and told him we were done. He had no idea. Contemporary school life at “good” schools often involves that sort of wild goose chase. Even just keeping up with the emails and paperwork from school for my two big kids is a major headache.
–Mandatory school service.
–Unlike in the past, parents are expected to monitor school-age children round the clock.
–Extracurriculars. That wasn’t yet a thing when I was growing up (at least not in our area), but it is now. We can always say, bah, who needs them?, but unfortunately, they do seem to be good at keeping kids out of trouble.

My extended family ran a business and the kids were expected to help out in the family business after school. This way the kids were kept out of trouble and they get to see the effort expended in earning a living.

 

[white_sheep]

Right.

When there’s a big power outage, you can see how our ancestors lived. When there’s no daylight and you only have a few candles, there’s not a lot of point in staying up.

Our ancestors had heavier physical work, but slept more than we do.

When the power is out it might be a third of the way to how they lived, at best. It was a lot more work. Even with no power my food is still ready to go. I don’t have to grind wheat.

There’s a list above Sarcelle quoted, that’s just crazy talk. Housework these days is simply nothing. I’ve done all the housework the last couple of weeks and it just isn’t all that much. An hour a day tops. Absolute max. Usually much less. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes, all of it. We have 3 under 6, so it isn’t like there are no kids.

 

[Xantippe]

When the power is out it might be a third of the way to how they lived, at best. It was a lot more work. Even with no power my food is still ready to go. I don’t have to grind wheat.

There’s a list above Sarcelle quoted, that’s just crazy talk. Housework these days is simply nothing. I’ve done all the housework the last couple of weeks and it just isn’t all that much. An hour a day tops. Absolute max. Usually much less. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes, all of it. We have 3 under 6, so it isn’t like there are no kids.

I suspect you’re missing a few tasks.

Grocery shopping, for instance.

We also find that when we’re all home all day and cooking almost every day (for instance during breaks), the dishwasher runs full a minimum of twice a day (and sometimes that’s not enough). Just the unloading, loading, unloading and loading would put a substantial dent in the one hour a day you’re allotting–and we use a lot of paper plates, too.

We don’t normally cook dinner at night (during the school year, we eat in the cafeteria), but when we have dinner at home very night, very large amounts of time are spent on cooking dinner, cleaning up the kitchen and those two runs of the dishwasher, not to mention keeping stocked with groceries.

 

[Xantippe]

When the power is out it might be a third of the way to how they lived, at best. It was a lot more work. Even with no power my food is still ready to go. I don’t have to grind wheat.

Eh, there’s a word for the people in the old days who ground wheat professionally. They were called “millers” and they’d run mills where people could bring wheat to be ground.

Likewise, there were people that baked bread professionally. They were called “bakers.”

In fact, those two words are so old as names of professions that they are common last names in the English speaking world, and there are no doubt equivalents in other languages.

Specialization is actually pretty old. Everybody didn’t have to do everything for themselves back in the good old days (at least not in areas with decent population density).

 

[white_sheep]

Eh, there’s a word for the people in the old days who ground wheat professionally. They were called “millers” and they’d run mills where people could bring wheat to be ground.

Likewise, there were people that baked bread professionally. They were called “bakers.”

In fact, those two words are so old as names of professions that they are common last names in the English speaking world, and there are no doubt equivalents in other languages.

Specialization is actually pretty old. Everybody didn’t have to do everything for themselves back in the good old days (at least not in areas with decent population density).

An example is when you use a particular instance to communicate a broader idea.

 

[white_sheep]

I suspect you’re missing a few tasks.

Grocery shopping, for instance.

We also find that when we’re all home all day and cooking almost every day (for instance during breaks), the dishwasher runs full a minimum of twice a day (and sometimes that’s not enough). Just the unloading, loading, unloading and loading would put a substantial dent in the one hour a day you’re allotting–and we use a lot of paper plates, too.

We don’t normally cook dinner at night (during the school year, we eat in the cafeteria), but when we have dinner at home very night, very large amounts of time are spent on cooking dinner, cleaning up the kitchen and those two runs of the dishwasher, not to mention keeping stocked with groceries.

No, I forgot grocery shopping. Never really thought of it as housework. I have done most of that lately as well.

A lot of people take longer or spend more time on housework. That’s one of the reasons I have just decided to basically do it all. It takes me practicality no time.

 

[EasterJoy]

It is a moot point whether it used to be harder, just as it is a moot point whether it was better to have grade schools staffed entirely by consecrated religious. Our choices are different now.

There is nothing in Catholic teaching that forbids a couple from dividing the labor of raising their family in any way they see fit. They have a joint responsibility to see that all the work gets done and they both need to be humble enough to do whatever work the family needs them to do. After that, it is enough that they are of one mind.

That is not to say that a conversation on roles can’t be a valuable way to share feedback from different families on how different ways of doing things worked for them. What needs to be avoided, however, is “this worked great for us and your way was a disaster for my sister and brother-in-law, so you ought to do it my way” or “our way worked out very badly for us, so trust us when we say that way can’t work for anyone.”

 

[Xantippe]

No, I forgot grocery shopping. Never really thought of it as housework. I have done most of that lately as well.

A lot of people take longer or spend more time on housework. That’s one of the reasons I have just decided to basically do it all. It takes me practicality no time.

Awesome! If it takes you no time at all and it’s no trouble at all for you, you’re obviously the best person to do it.

 

[The_Old_Maid]

Ooh, a thread soon to be locked! Must … post … quickly …

(Caution: wall-of-text ahead)

Okay. My guess is that Adam and Eve’s marriage before the Fall was more equal than complimentarian or patriarchial (it certainly wasn’t matriarchal). But complimentarianism requires roles, and most of those roles hadn’t been invented yet.

Consider: what are the traditional (not necessarily stereotypical, but those also) roles for men and women? Men worked for pay; women worked without being paid. Men advanced or regressed in their careers; women could do neither. Men took care of the home and family by paying bills; women took care of home and family by actual caregiving, including incurring bills.

Consider: Adam had a job (gardener/steward) and a “boss.” But Adam couldn’t earn money, buy, sell, or barter. He could not switch careers. He had no friends, enemies, or competition. It looks like God was the one Who provided for Adam’s family. Adam couldn’t even do the traditional (or whatever) hobbies of men. He couldn’t watch sports all weekend because he had no television and no people to play those sports. (Which means that, to paraphrase Roseanne Barr, Eve wouldn’t have had complaints about his traditionally manly activities by whining, “Maybe I should sit on top of the television so you can watch me all day!”)

Eve’s job is even more nebulous. Caregiving? They had neither children nor elderly relatives.

The late comedian George Carlin’s monologue “A place for my stuff” (reminder: includes cussing) explores the absurdity of materialism, noting that a house is just a pile of stuff in a really big box. We were born without stuff. We can’t take stuff with us when we die. But in between these milestones we collect stuff, stuff, and more stuff.

Well, traditionally a woman’s work is to maintain this pile of stuff. But Eve could not do the laundry; they were nude. (Or as nudists phrase it, “sky-clad.”)

What about cooking? They ate from the seeds and the trees (Gen. 1:29, 2:16), so if they ate baked apples, baked potatoes, or a pie with a crust, someone had to cook them. But with so many raw foods available to them, do we know that they cooked anything? And if they did, do we know that Eve cooked? Maybe Adam grilled. (Grilled fruits, veggies, and breads are very tasty.) Or maybe Eve grilled and Adam cooked.

Who washed the dishes? If you pluck food straight from the tree, there are no dishes. If you cook/grill food on a wooden skewer, there are no dishes.

What about dusting and vacuuming? You need to have stuff before you can have stuff to clean.

We don’t even know that they had a house. Why would they need one? For protection? They were safe. For warmth? Blankets or clothes that they invented themselves would have done that job, much as animals grow thick fur in the changing seasons. For a bed to sleep in? They could sleep in a treehouse on Monday, in a sweet-scented meadow on Tuesday, in a cave murmuring with falling water on Wednesday, on an island in a star-filled lake on Thursday, and so forth. For a place to put their stuff? There you go. But they would have to have stuff before they would need a place for their stuff.

Stuff isn’t just materialism, though goodness knows it feeds that fever far too much. Stuff has meaning. Or, rather, we impose meaning upon it. Judith “Miss Manners” Martin observed that “vacuum cleaners and diapers are not inherently sexist objects. They only become so when it is assumed that it is the woman’s job to put them on the floor or on the baby.” The stuff itself does not care.

{BTW, public service alert: guys, this is why your lady love gets so ticked off at you when you buy her a present that she has to plug in. An appliance or tool is a present for the house, not for her. A pair of matching rings with your names and the date inscribed inside the band says, “I love you so much that I remember the date!” A couples’ ballroom dancing lesson subscription says, “I love you so much that I’m walking on air!” A vacuum cleaner says, “You missed a spot.” It also says that if an asteroid or chunk of plane blue-ice plowed into your bride’s brains and killed her, the new employee would get your vacuum cleaner upon hire – as part of the house/work station – leaving him still on the hook to purchase a real present.

Now, if your wife actually tells you, tells you, “I have my preferred sewing machine on five-dollar layaway at such-and-such a store, and I don’t want jewelry, I just want you to redeem that ticket,” then it’s okay to give her a present that plugs in. Still, my advice would be to get it because she needs it, and then treat her to dinner for the special occasion/holiday.

Put it another way: how would you feel if you needed MS Excel on your computer at work to do your job, or you needed your forklift repaired, or you needed safety gear. What would you think of a boss who waits until your birthday to give it to you? You’d probably prefer that the boss just give you the [blessed] Excel and give you a box of Florida oranges for your birthday. Otherwise you could muddle through your job for, say, 11 months until your birthday comes around again. Then when you do get the equipment you need to do your job, it doesn’t leave when you leave. The next employee gets it, and also gets a raise for “not sitting on the work like that last lazy-buns did.” /end public-service alert.}

So you see, when we speculate on the nature of our parents’ marriage, well, it doesn’t seem to match anything we have seen before. In such an environment, our post-Fall terms lose much of their meaning.

Best guess: they came up with an arrangement that they could live with.