Chores and Gender Barriers: guest post

By Rachel Thomas of www.babysitting.net

In our family growing up way back when, there were two boys and a girl. At that time there were some very definite gender specific chores which use to really bother me. Things were not as bad as they could have been in earlier times but there were still definite gender issues in the home and the world at large when I was a child.

We were all three expected to wash dishes which was nice except when one of the boys got smart and started doing a very poor job on the dishes and was relieved of his duties. I wish I would have thought of that, but being a girl I knew it would not fly. He got moved to mopping duty which was fine with me because I never liked to mop but that was not a daily job either. The thing that really bothered me was that he was smug about it when the folks were not around!

Dishes: do them like the patriarchy tells you to.
(Who made this image? Let us know if you know!)

Another thing that always irked me was that the boys got the responsibility of mowing and yard work in general. I loved being out of doors and I would have loved that job. They acted as if it killed their souls to do yard work but what I would not have given to be out there! I was in the kitchen learning to cook and doing household chores while they got to play outside. Not that I mind cooking; I really enjoyed that particular part of my training. Mom did make the boys learn how to do some basic cooking too, not the baking but just how to be able to make a simple meal as a bachelor. This turned out to be a really great thing seeing that they both did all the cooking when they got married because their wives did not cook. That was quite a shock to me; I guess I was brain washed in gender specific chores because I never imagined a woman not being able to cook!

Mom and Dad really did not do too badly when it came to gender roles and chores, except for the lawn upkeep and that little ploy my brother pulled off with the dishwashing. And this was during a period in history where girls in our part of the country were not even allowed to take physical education; we were all in home economics and typing. I am dating myself here but girls were not even allowed to wear pants at this time. We were kept apart from things that were male dominated at the time. I really have to be honest and say that I did not mind this at all; I was always a very “girly” girl and did not like to get sweaty. But I know there were girls that would have loved to get into some of the sports that were taboo for us at the time.

Don’t let a corset hold you back!
(Die cut, c. 1895; source unknown)

Now that I am able to manage my own home and raise my own children I have decided there are no gender boundaries when it comes to working around the house. I have one daughter and one son and they are equal when it comes to chores. I made up a system long ago for doing chores for their sakes and mine because I hate doing chores as much as the next guy. Being a working mom when the weekends would come I was just as anxious to go out and have some fun with the kids as they were so we set up a way to do chores together.

We would write down all the chores that had to be done and throw them into a pot and draw out chores (we always tried to have an even number). If someone wanted to trade that was fine as long as the other guy wanted to. I know there are things I hate to do and sometimes we could trade out and do the jobs we did not hate so much. My son was much younger than my daughter, by seven years, so sometimes we had to help him out a little. We always made sure we traded down the jobs we knew he could handle.

When it came to yard work we were all out there together as a family. Each person had a job, one would mow, one would man the weed eater, one would trim bushes, and one would rake, etc. The hubby was in on this chore as well. We loved working in the yard as a family. It made it so much easier and working together as a family is also a bonding experience. We would do the cooking together at night as well. When I got home I was tired so we would all pitch in and make supper. The younger kids can do things like set the table and retrieve things from the pantry and fridge. We had a chance to talk about the day and we had a great time catching up as we prepared the meal.

Let’s grow more of these creatures! Men who cook.
(Image: dornob.com)

It is very important, no matter what the gender, for all the kids to be able to take care of anything that needs to be done around the house. Cooking, laundry, cleaning, yard work, grocery shopping, etc. because everyone needs to grow up without depending on someone else to care for them. And there is no reason to make chores so hard, especially when the kids are young. Making it a family affair somehow makes it easier but they still learn how to do it. In my opinion there is no reason why the whole family should not be responsible for the day to day chores in a home. Even doing things like the laundry can become fun if they are done together; one person puts them in the wash, one in the dryer, and then we all fold together and put the clothes away.

The grocery shopping is another thing that I have included my children in on. We generally have them with us anyway so it is an opportune time to teach them how to compare prices and get the bargains. I show them how much more economical it is to buy bigger when possible and we talk about the brands as well. My children have learned where things are in the store and I can send them after the things we need to expedite our shopping trip. This will not work for young children but you can start early teaching them about comparing and how to shop. It is also a great opportunity to teach them about money. When we are running in to buy just a few things I let them check out by themselves as I stand nearby in case they need me.

Take the family shopping.
(Sculpture installation by Australian artist Rod McRae)

In today’s world there is very little that is gender specific as far as work and responsibility and this should be the same in the home if our children are to succeed in life on their own. Just like with my two brothers, they married women that did not know how to cook so they became the chef in the home. And in my case I love to mow and do yard work and my husband was not particularly fond of it and would have rather done something inside so it worked out beautifully in that regard. You never know, even with the best laid plans, where life is going to take your children and what they will need to know. The best way to prepare your children is to prepare them for anything they will come up against and they will thank you when they get there! It is also a great relief to sit back and watch an independent child take flight with confidence when they leave your nest.

Rachel is an ex-babysitting pro as well as a professional writer and blogger. She is a graduate from Iowa State University and currently writes for www.babysitting.net. She welcomes questions/comments: rachelthomas.author @ gmail.com.

Not this again.

So, this old chestnut. Yes, I’m sorry. We all have to go through this AGAIN. Get your boots on, ladies. Lace ’em up. Forget those dishes for the moment. Put down that baby for a sec (flat on her back on a horizontal surface at least five metres away from where God forbid she might be able to hear your breathing or listen to your heartbeat, just for safety’s sake.) Take a swig of strong coffee. Join me in the ranks, as I draw an extremely world-weary sigh and tell this guy why he’s riled me up – yet again – on the topic of co-sleeping.

I sadly note that nothing in this post is new information, or anything I haven’t personally observed many times in the past either online in real life when similar ‘news’ items have cropped up. I really regret the fact that, once again, I’m obliged to rant it all out.

1. There is a very persuasive argument to be made that co-sleeping is a healthy and natural way of sleeping with tiny, new human beings. See a list of articles from scientific journals on the subject here. Buy a brilliant book on the subject here. Or do your own research (I suggest you start with medical opinions, rather than legal ones – apologies, Wallace).

Image: Katie M Berggren

2. The facts show that “co-sleeping” deaths are almost universally associated with other factors: alcohol, smoking, drugs, obesity, pre-existing health problems in the baby, or sleeping the baby on its front. (In this case, the baby was sleeping on its front and the parents had “a history of smoking and marijuana use”.) Despite the ubiquitous presence of these obviously major contributing factors in all the reports, it is ALWAYS co-sleeping that gets the rap in the media.  In the stuff.co.nz report that sparked this rant, co-sleeping was cited as ‘the cause’ of the death in the second paragraph. The fact that the baby was sleeping on its front was mentioned SIX paragraphs down. The tobacco and drug history was mentioned ELEVEN paragraphs down, in a parenthetical clause.

3. We humans in our current form have been around for 200,000 years. For how many of those years does Wallace reckon human babies have been tucked into their own cushy little custom-built cots more than an arm’s length away from their watchful mothers? Does he think that when we lived in caves, our fore-parents were decorating little ‘nursery’ sub-caves out of their sight and hearing, in order to put their little cave babies down to sleep there without any other humans in the vicinity? Before we were humans, for all intents and purposes we were apes. How many ape mothers has Wallace ever heard of, I wonder, who carefully put aside their babies at the end of the day to sleep by themselves in a designated corner of the jungle?

Together we Sleep by Laura Koniver MD

4. How many babies in the third world  – the majority of the human population alive today – the unwashed millions who listen to their mothers and grandmothers about how to care for their babies, and not to dicks like Wallace, whose pompous verbosity they cannot avoid on the internet – how many of THOSE babies does Wallace suppose sleeps as he demands their mothers make them sleep, tucked up shipshape in their own wee bed? Can he tell us why Japan, where co-sleeping is common, has the lowest rate of SIDS in the world?

5. There is no statistical record on the number of infant deaths in New Zealand for which co-sleeping was a cause. Wanna know why?  Because deaths in New Zealand are coded according to the World Health Organization’s international coding rules, and within those rules bed-sharing is not a cause of death. I’d like to repeat that last part again: Bed-sharing is not a cause of death. Babies die from suffocation – attributable to a whole array of factors (see point 2). Not from bed sharing.

Can’t find an attribution for this image! (Can you help?) Edit: this is l’intime by Faby Artiste. Thanks Paulina!

6. The New Zealand Ministry of Health’s FIRST piece of advice for parents to avoid Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is: ‘Put your baby to sleep on their back with their face up. A baby’s breathing works best in this position.’ Why aren’t you asking for legal enforcement of rule number 1, Wallace?

7. Wallace Bain is throwing around terms like ‘epidemic’ and ‘child abuse’ and ‘kill’. Those are huge, dirty words, Wallace. We mummies don’t use words like that. When we talk about this stuff – when we talk to fellow parents and to the wider world about the issues that are important to us (and these issues are very, very important to us) we try very hard not to use language that could even be construed as negatively subjective. Because as mothers we’ve learnt – the ridiculously hard way – that every single situation is different. Every child, every parent, every family. It’s a dangerous game to make wide-ranging generalisations about a parent’s or parents’ actions, or their personal experiences: not even when you know some of the circumstances, and not even when you know ALL of the circumstances. Using those ugly words is the worst sort of scare-mongering. (epidemic? Really? Do you know what New Zealand’s SIDS stats actually are? As a percentage of live births they barely show up on a graph – and the infant death rate has been steadily decreasing over time.)

8. Wallace Bain is not a paediatrician. He’s not a ‘baby-whisperer’. He is NOT a mother. He’s a lawyer. That is the sum total of what he’s qualified to comment on – the law.

9. He’s also Pākehā, and he’s middle-aged, and MALE (in one fell swoop, the experience and wisdom and instinct of New Zealand’s hundreds of thousands of mothers is ignored and negated; who cares what our nation’s mothers think about big issues like this one?) – which means that the media listen to him, and feel not the slightest compunction in spreading his words far and wide and implying that they are the last ones to be had on the topic. God forbid – god FORBID that New Zealand mothers will listen to him too.  Mummies, I beg you.

Don’t listen to him.

Daisy

No judging … just love. Let’s do this!

When Zelda is not busy looking after one daughter, giving birth to another, running a household and being generally fabulous, she’s busy running support networks and co-coordinating (Marji – you rock too!) amazing, life-and-love-affirming projects like this one. The article that appears here was written by Nicci McDougall and appeared today in New Zealand’s Southland Times and on stuff.co.nz.

Please, help us do this!

– Daisy

A support network of mothers plans to send a care package full of positive messages to the mother of injured 4-week-old Noklair Milton.

Mummies For Life support network chief executive and founder Zelda Edwards, who is based near Wellington, said she wanted to speak to the Invercargill family and identify their needs.

The Milton family had gone through a “very traumatic experience” and the group wanted to let them know they were there for them.

HELP WANTED: Sucharitta Milton, pictured here in 2010 with her dogs, says she was sent home in pain from Southland Hospital.

Ms Edwards, who has two children, said she started the support group for herself and friends, but 30 months later she had more than 1000 members throughout the country and other groups had been formed through it, including a postnatal depression group.

“With more than 1000 members we can help a lot of people.”

Many members had suffered postnatal depression and knew the difficulties and challenges, she said.

Noklair’s father, David Milton, said his wife Sucharitta went to Southland Hospital early on Sunday, September 1, in pain and after undergoing several tests was told she had postnatal depression and mastitis. She was sent home and told to see her GP on the Monday.

Noklair’s throat was slashed early on the Monday morning.

Police said Mr and Mrs Milton and the baby were home when the baby was violently attacked and they were not seeking anyone else in relation to the incident.

Ms Edwards said the support group wanted to send the care package to Sucharitta Milton and let her know she was not alone in terms of postnatal depression.

Mummies For Life was a support network which was not advertised – it was a secret society so it felt exclusive and all members were connected in some form, she said.

It was a 24/7 mum-to-mum advice network consisting of more than 1000 New Zealand mothers, including about 10 in Southland.

Ms Edwards said the group’s focus was positive support for parenting and included a “cyber village of mothers” who talked online and by phone.

It was designed for mothers to get support whenever they needed it.

HELPING HAND: Mummies For Life support network chief executive and founder Zelda Edwards with her 1-week-old daughter, Ripley Kowhai Smith, wants to send a care package to the Milton family, of Invercargill.

Mummies For Life is collating messages of love and support for the Milton family and would like to get as many as possible.

Email messages to: loveforsucharitta@gmail.com