Defying Traditional Gender Roles

Hi — it’s Chris, Elaine’s husband. Just a reminder that we’re posting about a project we’re calling the “Year of Plenty” on Thursdays, and I write these posts 🙂

It has been about six weeks since Elaine and I started the Year of Plenty. And let me tell you, we’re learning a lot! There have been great things, surprising things, and hard things. Taking this step has been eye-opening for me in a lot of ways. I have told several people that I feel more myself than I ever have. In many ways, I’m re-learning what it means to be a good dad and a good husband. I’m also getting the chance to learn who I am and what I really value.

In our first post about the Year of Plenty, I outlined some of the values that Elaine and I have for our family. Among these values is “Equality.” Here’s what I wrote about that in the first post:

We value sharing responsibility over traditional gender roles. Working at the new job would have frequently led to the expectation that Elaine would take care of the house and the kids, and I would bring home the money. That’s not how we think about our marriage, and it’s not what I want for our family. We want to see ourselves as equal partners in our relationship, and that includes family and home responsibilities.

Our society is built in a certain way, right? It’s true that we have seen a dramatic rise in females in the workplace over the last few decades. It’s also true that women have more autonomy and chances for professional growth than ever before. But the fact remains if families want to live on one income, it is most frequently mothers who are expected stay home and men who work. Then, because of several other social scripts that we’re given about how men should think and behave, we see men as distant, or bumbling, or incompetent. We also often see men as breadwinners and women as caretakers.

If I had to guess, many of the people reading this right now don’t think this way. You may affirm female equality in the workplace. You may also affirm that men and women hold equal weight and authority with men in their families. I know Elaine and I do. But this becomes SO MUCH more difficult when our society is built in such a way that men work and women (if they desire) stay home to take care of their children and home duties.

When Elaine and I reevaluated our finances in light of her last couple of years in professional photography, it was like I had a real epiphany. Elaine and I have always been egalitarian in our approach to marriage (this is a topic I don’t have time to get into, but there are plenty of resources out there — just search for “egalitarianism” on Google). The problem was, we didn’t shape our WHOLE lives in an egalitarian manner. Instead of thinking creatively about how our family could work, we just accepted the traditional scripts that society gave to us. By assuming I needed to be the one to bring in money, we implicitly affirmed the false narrative that men should work and women should stay home. That the house and the kids were her responsibility, not mine.

To be honest, this is still something we’re working through. About a week ago, Elaine had just come off of three different births, and was faced with the daunting task of editing and keeping up with her Lane B Photography workload. On Monday/Wednesday/Friday, we homeschool our kids. Seeing that she had a ton of work to do, we closed off the doors to the living room, and I took care of the “household” duties all day. I cleaned the kitchen, taught the girls, and prepped lunch and dinner (I may have sneaked in some sourdough baking in there — another post for another day). Later in the day, Elaine told me she felt guilty that she wasn’t doing more in the house because she had so much work to do. To which I replied, “This is exactly why we did this. Don’t feel guilty, take advantage!”

I’m not saying this to brag on myself. Anyone who knows me knows I’m flawed in plenty of ways. My point here is to simply say that valuing equality in a relationship with a partner is harder than it looks. It’s easy to *say* we value equality. What’s difficult in our current system is *practicing* equality. And I’m thankful for the chance Elaine and I have to give it a shot.

*Photo by the lovely Aleks Gajdeczeka