You may be equal partners in a relationship, but are the roles in the relationship equal? As this Facebook post reveals, they are clearly not.
Mother and blogger, Darla Halyk, shares a post that will resonate with every woman who, without realizing it, has taken on the role of a domestic goddess without asking for one.
I was a young girl when I realized there was a hierarchy in my home. Chores were designated by gender. Blue jobs for my brother, and pink jobs for me. Mom did the cleaning, cooking, and most everything needed to make our house a home. Dad mowed the lawn, fixed the cars, and played with my brother…
Think about it. Men do the heavy-lifting, yes, but do you need to move that sofa every day? It is the dust that collects on it that needs removing every day.
Every day it was the same. I spent my time tidying up the house, cleaning the kitchen, and starting dinner.
While I domesticated myself, my brother would either mow the lawn, take out the garbage, or… come to think of it, there weren’t a lot of blue jobs that needed daily attention. I noticed my workload was different, perhaps even harder at times, but I was the girl, and it was what was expected of me.
This same scenario played out in my marriage many years later.
It was in those moments I realized his chore list seemed a little heavier in physical weight but much lighter in actual duties.
So, you’re disgusted by the dirty dishes lying outside the sink, the dirty clothes lying on the bed? Well, you’re a nag.
I didn’t speak out, complain, or say anything. I didn’t know it to be different, or wrong. But I did know without a doubt if I did complain I would be met with resistance. I might indeed be labelled, crazy. A nag.
Darla watched her mom do more and more, and never expected to get any help in return.
I had spent my whole life watching the women in my life carry the weight of the entire house on their backs while men sat back and watched them do it. It was normal, expected
I would watch my Mother drudge over the dinner I’d half-prepared. Still dressed in her silk jumper, her purse barely placed on the kitchen table, she stood over a chocolate brown stove while the three of us indulged in the newest episode of M*A*S*H.
She doesn’t blame her father whom she loves and admires a lot. But it is the conditioning that is part of the problem.
It’s no one’s fault, except maybe the patriarchy, I grew up in a misogynist’s world.
Even as women clock the same hours at work, put the same efforts in their social realm, they still have to pile on more responsibilities. They do it with love–love for their partners, love for their kids. But isn’t it time to change?
When I was growing up, both of my parents had full-time jobs. Careers, in fact. My Mother was a successful Bank Manager, yet when she arrived home she still cooked and plated my Father’s meal. No one did that for her. She did it with love, she wanted to take care of him, but regularly she was exhausted. No less tired than any man in her position. Yet she was assumed to come home and feed her family. Expected to clean “her” house, only to be told she wasn’t worthy of the title on the deed. Sometimes she wanted her husband to take care of her. To plate her meal, or fold her laundry.
Now before you tell us that your relationship is different and that your partner helps you out in household chores, please read this and see if it changes your mind.
“This isn’t about men helping women to run the house, it’s about men actually seeing that it isn’t only a woman’s job.”
You can read the full post here.