Traditional roles for men and women

[Mary_Gail_36]

Well, there is the question–how traditional is it, really?

One thing I’ve only recently noted is that the concept of “house cleaning” as a chore doesn’t really feature in the world of the Bible. You hear about ritual purification in the law books of the Old Testament, but house cleaning as a large share of a woman’s time just does not occur in the Bible. See, for example, the famous Proverbs 31 woman–lots of different kinds of work being mentioned (buying and managing a vineyard, trading, textile manufacture) but no house cleaning whatsoever, and the work she does doesn’t really sound like a mid-20th century housewife’s duties. (Although she is praised for getting food for her family from far away–which does have an analog in modern times.) Also, she explicitly has lots of household help. And there’s surprisingly little mention of childcare.

There is historically a lot of flux in domestic duties. To give just one example, when I was a kid, ironing occupied vast amounts of my mom’s time (as well as mine and my sister’s). Nowadays, I buy no-iron dress shirts for my husband and no-iron dress shirts for my kids for school and can go years without touching an iron. However, my mother (God bless her) didn’t do a fraction of the kid-driving that I do. She had the school bus to ferry us back and forth, whereas I’m driving kids back and forth to school, camp, therapy, music lessons, etc–stuff that just didn’t exist in the world of my childhood. She also spent maybe 1/10 as much time and energy on children’s school work as my husband and I do.

Similarly, in times past, laundry was not part of the sphere of responsibility of the mother of a prosperous family. Modern progress (the washer and dryer) have saddled the middle class mother with a major job that in times past was the responsibility of…the washerwoman or laundress.

washergenes.wordpress.com/2006/06/15/english-laundresses-a-social-history-1850-1930/

I would suggest that while there are certain obvious benefits to a SAHM/working dad split (dad doesn’t lactate and more often than not, dad makes a lot more money than mom ever could and somebody has got to watch the kids), some pragmatism is in order. Mom and grandma and great-grandma and great-great-grandma and great-great-great-grandma did stuff a certain way because of the practicalities of their situations, but as times change, the practicalities change, too.

My grandmother lived in Chicago, circa 100 years ago. No washerwoman for her. So she sewed as a dressmaker in a factory (hand stitching, often) then after work Friday, she’d hand wash laundry. That night she didn’t cook, it was pizza pie night.

 

[Kelfa28]

If this has been argued to death and you don’t want to discuss it, then why are you joining the discussion?

Because I can.

I never said there is anything wrong with being a traditional wife and mom…so why are you taking offense to my comments?

You are defending being a stay at home mom and I’m defending being a working mom.

I said that some women love being a stay at home mom and wife…others are not.

 

[Regina7]

Because I can.

I never said there is anything wrong with being a traditional wife and mom…so why are you taking offense to my comments?

You are defending being a stay at home mom and I’m defending being a working mom.

I said that some women love being a stay at home mom and wife…others are not.

Kefla, I’m not in the least bit offended. reread my original post and your response. You’re the one who yelled to leave it alone. And, you’ll notice that my post didn’t even mention working mothers, nor did I even HINT that my decision to stay home was what was right for everyone. I simply said that I didn’t understand why some thought traditional roles were looked down on.

 

[bitterhope]

It seems that some believe all people relate or at least should relate to “prosperous” women in history even though the vast majority of people during any time period were far from prosperous. Yes, the rich have always employed the rest of us and the rest of us did your dirty work plus our own (so to speak). Of course the Bible did not talk about house work or child care. It also didn’t talk about most other everyday tasks that were just expected everyone dealt with. It wouldn’t make much sense to talk about those things that were just everyday, non controversial things. Many areas of the world, “traditional” people if each culture have always and most likely will continue with a primary model of men’s work and women’s work. Men are more likely to work farther from home while women are more likely to work from home. Babies are tied up on mamas’ backs as she works in fields or sells at the market. Papas might work along side of mama or leave home for months at a time for work. Rarely in most traditional world cultures, even modern day, do moms leave infants, toddlers or preschoolers to the care of others unless it is a family member and mom is still close enough to respond to a baby in distress. Baby cries, mom is there. Baby is playing or sleeping, maybe sibling or other relative is keeping watch. Only in upper middle class or higher in most cultures would mom have commitments that took her away from home or her duties to the children for any amount of time. It is still frowned upon by many non European descended people’s/cultures for this to happen today.

Look, we live in a society that allows for many choices in how we live as a family and as individuals. I’m glad to have the choices and I’m glad that if people like many on CAF it seems are able to get household help it’s an option. Many people have never had that option and still today the majority will never be able either. Personally I’m proud of the fact that I and my ancestors have been plenty strong enough to work WHILE caring for our own children without help from the outside and we have done that very successfully. And history has been built on the backs of those who, like my family, have been strong enough to do so while taking care of all the little things those “better off” can’t seem to figure out how to do on their own. Part I would change is that in generations past mothers have had more freedom to bring their children to work with them and today in the US most employers don’t allow them to do so. And that includes nannies and housekeepers in private homes. That makes it much harder on working mothers because they do not make enough to provide for help themselves and therefore many are left without the option of working even if it would benefit their families.

I find it sad that instead of striving to be stronger and persevere in tough times people instead decide to rewrite history to “prove” women have never had it so hard when in actuality we have never had it easier. The help people need obviously isn’t with the household tasks that machinery does for them now. Women have never had so much free time at any time in history. So what is it that so many women are spending so much time on that still they can’t make it without “needing” help?

I guess to be fair it isn’t really rewriting history. More accurately it is ignoring a large part of history and the contributions made by the majority of people in any given time period. The upper classes have always had the view that anything beneath them is uncivilized and I’m saddened and angered when that view is what is glorified, revered and spread as gospel truth. Entire civilizations have been lost due to this view and now many cultures have been both lost and forgotten because only the “prosperous” get to “tell” their stories.

 

[alphawoman]

I think the key is that, at each point in time, members of the family pursue the type of work in which they have a Ricardian comparative advantage.

Remember that, until recently, family was a larger community of parents, grandparents, children, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. With such a large support network, there was less need for a strict two-way division of labour between spouses and, instead, a more fluid and varied sharing of work. The notion of a husband - wife allocation of labour is a modern artefact that has arisen to support a postwar model of consumption supported by labour-saving household technological advances that allowed one parent to opt out of the labour force. Throughout most of human history, both parents have worked in some non-childcare capacity and cared for children out of necessity, as each partner’s value marginal product of labour was low. All work, no play!

 

[EasterJoy]

*Who can find a woman of worth?
Far beyond jewels is her value.

Her husband trusts her judgment;
he does not lack income.

She brings him profit, not loss,
all the days of her life.

She seeks out wool and flax
and weaves with skillful hands.

Like a merchant fleet,
she secures her provisions from afar.

She rises while it is still night,
and distributes food to her household,
a portion to her maidservants.

She picks out a field and acquires it;
from her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She girds herself with strength;
she exerts her arms with vigor.

She enjoys the profit from her dealings;
her lamp is never extinguished at night.

She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her fingers ply the spindle.

She reaches out her hands to the poor,
and extends her arms to the needy.

She is not concerned for her household when it snows—
all her charges are doubly clothed.

She makes her own coverlets;
fine linen and purple are her clothing.

Her husband is prominent at the city gates
as he sits with the elders of the land.

She makes garments and sells them,
and stocks the merchants with belts.

She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and laughs at the days to come.

She opens her mouth in wisdom;
kindly instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household,
and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband, too, praises her:
“Many are the women of proven worth,
but you have excelled them all.”

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting;
the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

Acclaim her for the work of her hands,
and let her deeds praise her at the city gates.*Proverbs 31:10-31

You will find the Bible warning against women who are vain and women who use their beauty to seduce, but the Bible has no problem at all with a woman brings money into her household by her own efforts and her own decision-making. She is accounted a blessing to her husband and children, a wife and mother to be praised “at the city gates.”

 

[dreamer29]

What I don’t understand is why some people think traditional roles are a bad thing. I am a homeschooling mom, so I take on all the traditional female roles- raising kids, cooking, cleaning, etc. I also have a post- graduate degree, but I don’t really use it, especially not in my daily life.

Just yesterday, someone said I was wasting my time and couldn’t possibly understand how I could be fulfilled.

My husband earns the bacon, and I cook it

It amazes me that so many people don’t understand that not only are dh and I ok with this, we actually like it.

 

[Xantippe]

bitterhope,

Here are some thoughts:

1. A lot of people that are thinking about this stuff on this thread are obviously not poor. So, their situation deserves to be discussed, just like the situation of the poor deserves to be discussed. Feel free to discuss ways in which you feel that life for people in your economic situation can be improved. For instance, you mentioned being able to take children to work–that was very constructive.
2. One of the oddities of modern US life is well-off Christian women (and an occasional homeschool dad) believing that if they don’t personally scrub every inch of their home, cook every meal their family eats, breastfeed (at least in the case of the SAH moms) and tote around every single one of their children until at least 2 and homeschool their kids without any help until the kids marry, they are somehow failing–never mind how contradictory and historically ridiculous this set of demands is. That’s the view that I’m primarily arguing against–this particular set of requirements is very new and (not to mince words) it’s nonsense and it’s not traditional and it’s bad for women and families.

I realize that some families have to do without any help, but what I feel is extraordinarily destructive is making not having any help be the cultural ideal for everybody. It sets new mothers up to fail. Also, it relieves the rest of us of the responsibility of thinking about new parents and how to help them and make their lives better (and I would argue that that is our Christian duty to do that). The lack of help contributes to the fact that the average US woman has no more than 2.0 kids. If there were more help available and hiring or accepting free help was more socially normal, it would be feasible for the average US woman to have a larger family. Doing everything yourself leads very directly to the 2.0 kid family.

You know how often we see mothers on CAF that are good women, good mothers, regular posters, and are just hanging by a thread because they just can’t cope anymore.

1. I have the advantage over you of a Protestant childhood, so I can tell you that there is lots of discussion of cooking and food in the Bible, not to mention lots of agriculture. So, yeah, lots of everyday stuff. The Jewish law code in the Old Testament is largely concerned with the correct way to do everyday things. (What to eat, what not to eat, how to cook it, etc.)
2. With regard to your statement that “I find it sad that instead of striving to be stronger and persevere in tough times people instead decide to rewrite history to “prove” women have never had it so hard when in actuality we have never had it easier,” I’d like to point out that a lot of us know that in our own lifetimes, our own parents had far more family help than we do.

Let me give a couple of examples from my family. I grew up in my dad’s hometown and my dad’s parents lived there (grandpa worked in a sawmill and raised cattle and grandma was a store cashier until grandpa let her quit). My grandma was 50 when I was born, so a relatively young grandma, and she was VERY excited by my appearance. I have many memories of hanging out at her house without my parents, first as a little kid and then after track practice while waiting for my dad to pick me up after work. In any case, my parents had lots of grandma help and I can only remember being in non-family care outside of school maybe twice (although there were probably other cases I can’t remember). Fast forward to the present. My parents live two thousand miles away and are very busy with their businesses. They’ve visited us once every time we’ve had a new baby, plus one bonus visit when we moved to TX, so 4 visits total over 13 years of our having kids (we try to visit once a year). I think that over the past 13 years, my kids have spent a grand total of maybe 2-4 hours in the care of my parents. I can’t recall that they’ve ever offered.

Then there’s my husband’s family. My husband was born to two graduate students in Eastern Europe. His parents were in school until he was old enough to help them number their dissertation pages. He had a grandma in the same town and he went over to her apartment every day after school. Later on, the family emigrated and a different grandma came over from the Old Country and took care of my husband’s baby sister when she was an infant and toddler and cooked glorious greasy Eastern European food for the family while both parents worked full-time. Like my parents, my in-laws are also VERY busy, but when we do see them, they are much more actively helpful and they’ve done a lot (especially compared to my parents). But, 96-98% of the time, they’re 2,000 miles away.

So, at least in my family, there’s been a pretty spectacular decline in the amount of help available to young parents, even just going from my parents’ generation to our generation.

 

[Xantippe]

Yes. The Proverbs 5 woman and the Proverbs 7 woman come to mind.

*Who can find a woman of worth?
Far beyond jewels is her value.

Her husband trusts her judgment;
he does not lack income.*

She brings him profit, not loss,
all the days of her life.

She seeks out wool and flax
and weaves with skillful hands.

Like a merchant fleet,
she secures her provisions from afar.

She rises while it is still night,
and distributes food to her household,
a portion to her maidservants.

She picks out a field and acquires it;
from her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She girds herself with strength;
she exerts her arms with vigor.

She enjoys the profit from her dealings;
her lamp is never extinguished at night.

She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her fingers ply the spindle.

She reaches out her hands to the poor,
and extends her arms to the needy.

She is not concerned for her household when it snows—
all her charges are doubly clothed.

She makes her own coverlets;
fine linen and purple are her clothing.

Her husband is prominent at the city gates
as he sits with the elders of the land.

She makes garments and sells them,
and stocks the merchants with belts.

She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and laughs at the days to come.

She opens her mouth in wisdom;
kindly instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household,
and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband, too, praises her:
“Many are the women of proven worth,
but you have excelled them all.”

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting;
the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

Acclaim her for the work of her hands,
and let her deeds praise her at the city gates.Proverbs 31:10-31

You will find the Bible warning against women who are vain and women who use their beauty to seduce, but the Bible has no problem at all with a woman brings money into her household by her own efforts and her own decision-making. She is accounted a blessing to her husband and children, a wife and mother to be praised “at the city gates.”

 

[EasterJoy]

What I don’t understand is why some people think traditional roles are a bad thing. I am a homeschooling mom, so I take on all the traditional female roles- raising kids, cooking, cleaning, etc. I also have a post- graduate degree, but I don’t really use it, especially not in my daily life.

Just yesterday, someone said I was wasting my time and couldn’t possibly understand how I could be fulfilled.

My husband earns the bacon, and I cook it

It amazes me that so many people don’t understand that not only are dh and I ok with this, we actually like it.

There are so many people who have been told that the traditional roles didn’t work for a very unhappy some that they forget that these roles did work for a quite a few. Parents weren’t foisting off an oppressive system on their children. They were passing on a habit of life that had worked for them. Maybe they didn’t examine the question of whether their way of life was as universally-applicable as it might seem, but they were usually passing on something that had been of proven value in their own lives. Most parents, when they go through something that makes them miserable will work very hard to give their children something they think is better.

 

[Convert_in_99]

+1

Questions like this get literally thousands of answers, and often get a thread locked pretty quickly.
What works for some doesn’t at all work for others.

Yeah, this thread will get locked like the rest of them. Until then harsh, angry posts will flourish. Nothing will ever get resolved, because there is no right or wrong answer. It’s a loose loose situation, and why this topic should be on the banned topic list. At least that’s my :twocents:

 

[spunjalebi]

I sincerely hope this thread does not get flooded with emotionally charged responses and subsequently locked.

The reason why people get so riled up is because most don’t know their history. The industrial revolution in human history, is still a relatively recent phenomenon and was a catalyst for huge cultural changes. I don’t think people as a society were quite prepared for all of these changes.

Historically speaking, life wasn’t always like the 1950’s. Women participated in the management of a business, including the home much more than they do know. Men stayed closer to the home as well and spent more time with their families. The HOME was the center of the family, and because the home was the center, communities were formed.

People these days are all too quick to pat themselves on the back because they are “sacrificing” by having a husband drive hours and hours for a job, leaving a wife alone at home with multiple children and somehow get things accomplished. This was NOT a historical norm, nor was it encouraged. What we consider to be “traditional” has only been so in the last 200 years, or less.

 

[pianistclare]

I sincerely hope this thread does not get flooded with emotionally charged responses and subsequently locked.

The reason why people get so riled up is because most don’t know their history. The industrial revolution in human history, is still a relatively recent phenomenon and was a catalyst for huge cultural changes. I don’t think people as a society were quite prepared for all of these changes.

Historically speaking, life wasn’t always like the 1950’s. Women participated in the management of a business, including the home much more than they do know. Men stayed closer to the home as well and spent more time with their families. The HOME was the center of the family, and because the home was the center, communities were formed.

People these days are all too quick to pat themselves on the back because they are “sacrificing” by having a husband drive hours and hours for a job, leaving a wife alone at home with multiple children and somehow get things accomplished. This was NOT a historical norm, nor was it encouraged. What we consider to be “traditional” has only been so in the last 200 years, or less.

Yup. Agreed.
But some people get really defensive. Too defensive. Methinks they protest too much really.

 

[Vanny]

I sincerely hope this thread does not get flooded with emotionally charged responses and subsequently locked.

The reason why people get so riled up is because most don’t know their history. The industrial revolution in human history, is still a relatively recent phenomenon and was a catalyst for huge cultural changes. I don’t think people as a society were quite prepared for all of these changes.

Historically speaking, life wasn’t always like the 1950’s. Women participated in the management of a business, including the home much more than they do know. Men stayed closer to the home as well and spent more time with their families. The HOME was the center of the family, and because the home was the center, communities were formed.

People these days are all too quick to pat themselves on the back because they are “sacrificing” by having a husband drive hours and hours for a job, leaving a wife alone at home with multiple children and somehow get things accomplished. This was NOT a historical norm, nor was it encouraged. What we consider to be “traditional” has only been so in the last 200 years, or less.

yes this is correct sometimes I even wonder if radical feminism would have gotten off the ground without the industrial revolution.

 

[EasterJoy]

…The industrial revolution in human history, is still a relatively recent phenomenon and was a catalyst for huge cultural changes. I don’t think people as a society were quite prepared for all of these changes…

Meaning: a majority of workplaces not fit for children, rather than adults doing the majority of their work where at least older children could be there, mechanical transportation that allow workplaces far from the workers’ homes, and mechanical advances that negate most of the importance of physical strength in important work that not even all men were strong enough to do.

 

[SWolf]

I do think there’s some basis for it in reality. The biological reality of pregnancy and nursing (before formula and for those too poor to afford wet nurses) meant a woman would have to stay closer to home as long as she had young children.

However, I think what frequently gets lost in these discussions is that until very recently, men ALSO stayed pretty darn close to home. Their business was run out of their home, or they did farming. And their wives were often helping with that as well.

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.

 

[spunjalebi]

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.

 

[SWolf]

Historically speaking, life wasn’t always like the 1950’s. Women participated in the management of a business, including the home much more than they do know. Men stayed closer to the home as well and spent more time with their families. The HOME was the center of the family, and because the home was the center, communities were formed.

The husband and wife would spend a significant amount of time with their sons and daughters, not doing play time and such, but teaching them how to work and survive. I honestly think we should make schools three hours a day, then send the kids to work with their mom or dad for the rest of the day, and get paid. In current office culture, however, I do not see that happening.

For those who think the kids would not add value, even the most interesting jobs have annoying work that even a ten year old can do.

People these days are all too quick to pat themselves on the back because they are “sacrificing” by having a husband drive hours and hours for a job, leaving a wife alone at home with multiple children and somehow get things accomplished. This was NOT a historical norm, nor was it encouraged. What we consider to be “traditional” has only been so in the last 200 years, or less.

Most people I talk to would murder to be able to leave the corporate life and stay at home with the kids. If they find a way to make it work, wonderful.

 

[spunjalebi]

Unfortunately, we contributed to the creation of our current culture in the last 100 years. What we should do to slowly move away from our current structure, to a more “traditional” one is provide more support to each other.

 

[pensmama87]

Unfortunately, we contributed to the creation of our current culture in the last 100 years. What we should do to slowly move away from our current structure, to a more “traditional” one is provide more support to each other.

Yes. Even though in many/most ways our lives are much easier physically speaking than they were in generations past, social isolation is crippling, and it seems like both men and women experience that. A lot of the hardest labor was shared by not only the members of the household (which could be multi-generational) but also neighbors, etc. That doesn’t make it less hard, and there are downsides to having everybody know your business, absolutely, but much more sense of community than today.

I live in a community that is very much considered to be neighborly and friendly and it is, much more so than anyplace I remember growing up. But I still know very few neighbors by name and certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable asking to borrow a cup of sugar.