Sibling Rivalry

Dear Peabody,

Today, your brother felt you kick for the first time. The look on his face was precious, priceless, and so full of awe.  Someday, when both of you have driven each other nuts and you think you hate each other, I'll remind you both of this day.  He has so much love to give you, sweet girl.

Love,

Mama

Role Reversal

For those of you who don't know, in our family, the woman works outside the home and the man doesn't.

You wouldn't believe how many people (and not only men, but educated, independent women who should know better), have said "but what does he DO??" with looks almost of horror on their faces when I mention that I'm the one who has a job, and D doesn't.  That would never, ever, EVER happen if I were a man and said that my wife stays home with our son. Or if it did, people would be expecting me to say that my wife scrapbooks or something useful like that. Even if people aren't surprised, I still get semi-sarcastic remarks about how I must wear the pants in our relationship. Which is so untrue it's laughable.  Few and far between are those who accept the situation at face value, and even more rarely do I hear: "Oh, we wish we could do that in our family."

I'm not sure which is the worse chauvinistic attitude: the attitude that if he's at home, he clearly does nothing worthwhile, or the attitude that I'm the woman, and therefore need him to "prove" that he can care for me financially, so that I in my turn can stay home and be much more productive than he ever could.

My husband made almost as much in his first year as an engineer as I will make in three years as a resident. And he didn't have to stack up an additional four years of debt to do it.  But he did have to be gone all the time,  leaving me with a terrible work schedule and the social calendar of a school-aged child to deal with on my own, not to mention the house and the yard and the cars and all of the other things that grown-ups have to think about.  When his company asked him to go out on the road again or else, we had to do what was best for our family, not what was best for our bank account.  

We had always planned to do this, it just happened sooner than we had anticipated. After all, my husband's job was not something he enjoyed.  And while he could see himself enjoying other jobs within the field, those jobs weren't the ones that were hiring.  Meanwhile, I love what I do. I can't imagine doing anything else. So why should he have to work just because he's the man? His ego doesn't need it, and my fragile womanhood doesn't need the reminder that he's perfectly capable of "taking care" of me.  Who would it be unfair to if he were the one working at a job that he hated, while I stayed away from a job I love?

As for wearing the pants in the relationship, there is no doubt in my mind who does. People who know us think that I do because I'm the loud, bossy, temperamental one, while he's the calm, quiet one.  But just because he spoils me by letting me act like a princess doesn't mean that I make the final decisions.  I rely on him wholeheartedly, which he enjoys because he likes to take care of me and which gives me that taken-care-of feeling, both of which we apparently need to fulfill our cultural gender roles.  We question each other's opinions almost constantly, but if one of us is asking the other for help with a decision, I can almost guarantee that it's me asking him. 

Now let's talk about that business about "what does he do all day?" Well, people, I don't know if you've ever tried taking care of A FREAKING FAMILY by yourself, but most of the people I know can't even take care of themselves very well.  And yes, I'm irritated, and therefore talking about you.  He manages our finances, cooks AND cleans, does the laundry, shuttles E to his various activities, helps with homework, mows the yard, attends school functions, gardens, does the grocery shopping, and generally keeps our life (and vehicles) running smoothly.  All of those duties that don't seem very time consuming until you realize you've been working all day and now, not only do you not have any food in your refrigerator, but you don't have gas in your car to make it to the store, and even if you did, you don't have any clean shirts to wear out of the house.

When I stopped having to worry about all of those things, my stress level decreased dramatically.  I became a better wife and mother, and probably a better person over all.  I'm more able to relax when I get home, without having to think about how the kitchen looks or whether my son has finished his spelling homework.

And obviously, the best outcome, and the one that fueled our decision to have a single-income family in the first place, has been that D has really gotten the chance to be a parent, and E has had a parent who can be there for him all the time.  When this baby girl (finally) comes along, she's going to have the same privilege. And somehow I don't think our kids will care whether they have a mom or a dad at home with them.

They'll just care that someone is there.