TheMommyBlog

I was just over at SVMoms (Thanks to co-founder Jill Asher for the tip!) and was left gaping at the screen after reading one of Tia’s posts. The one on fairness.

Two things hit me:

1. I had been approaching marriage all wrong; and
2. I had been approaching my children all wrong on the topic of chores and collective responsibility.

I spent fifteen years trying to make sure our relationship was fair. I was playful, loyal, responsible, loving, observant, considerate, and fiercely loving. I expected the same in return.

That just wasn’t fair. Number one, that was my yardstick. Two, it was a totally unreasonable expectation and the wrong way to look at a relationship. Tia realized the same thing and had the insight to articulate it in the context of parenting:

Except for the fact that i have a boy and a girl, i find myself falling into the trap of what my parents did for my sister and i in the firm belief that they were being fair.

Apparently it’s the No.1 no-no in the Sibling Bible - Sibling without Rivalry. You don’t strive for equality, or sameness. You stress uniqueness—“do you really want a cookie ? Do you need a bike ? or do you simply need the reassurance that you are special.”

i swore i would never repeat what my parents did, so you can imagine my horror when i saw the kids reconstructing the system themselves.

Looking back, It’s interesting to reflect on the repercussions of living in the system where everything is “equal” and “fair”.

Sometimes i feel if i could epitomize all the false expectations i have for my husband in this marriage, it would be summarized by the statement: i expect things to be the same ie.equal opportunity, equal misery, equal joy, equal responsibilities.

It’s funny but sometimes i feel like i interact with E the same way i interacted with my sister. i want fairness, i want someone to slice the pie right down the middle the way it was as children. i want him to get the stretch marks, the sleepless nights, the 10 year career gap in his resume. After all, i was raised to do everything he does, to be logical and factual, and pragmatic and rational. i am all those things , however un-instinctive. i don’t cut him any flack about how his brain got fried by testosterone so he can’t do all the things we can as women.

It’s hurt us deeply. i am still waiting for him to do his chores. i am still waiting for his mom to put him in time out for not fulfilling his responsibilities. i am still waiting for God to say ok, it’s Tia’s turn to be the kid and you have to be the grown up now.

That time never comes, and through the years, i’ve grieved it and let it go and focussed all my energy instead on not being mommy or God.

Holy shit and yikeroonies.

My brother and I were raised in a “there are no boy things or girl things, just kid things” environment. Mom was the second-oldest of six. The oldest was a boy, so he doesn’t count for a moment. Think about it: a girl with four younger siblings, three of them boys. She was expected to take care of them. Both my grandparents worked, Grandpa at the helm of a company he started and Grandma keeping the books (no mean feat—that company is worth millions today). Mom cooked, cleaned, disciplined, was even responsible for the hair ribbons that were a required part of the school uniform and which her little sister never, ever kept in her hair.

Now toss that older boy in. He wasn’t expected to do any of that. He and the other boys did “outdoor work” and “indoor work” was for girls. Sure, my grandfather would be out there measuring the grass with a ruler so it wasn’t as if they didn’t have their own strict standards, but I’d take that as a fair trade for being brought home from college after a year and a half because “we can’t afford to send the girls to school, too.” Of course, the older boy is now at the helm of the family company, but get this: my mom and each of the women my uncles married are highly-educated women with more diplomas each then the rest of them put together. (I could be off, but not by much).

So you can imagine why my mother stressed equality with her children, a boy and a girl. We alternated chores. We were both expected to clean up after ourselves. And above all, we were expected to get along as part of our familial responsibility and as a sign of respect for our mother. (I’m sorry, Mom, I really am.)

In a parenting book i read a while ago by Kevin Leman, i read an interesting take on chores.

In a family of 6, he had a rule that if you don’t want to do your chores, you don’t have to. You just have to pay one of your siblings to. The implications of it blew my mind—you don’t have to do your chores! But i recognized the value in the system.

• It recognized the uniqueness in each personality and respected the individuals inclinations without relinquishing the responsibility.
• It taught children the value of reallocating resources and utilizing strengths. Some people are better at doing chores, some at making money to hire someone to do chores.
• It encouraged problem solving and negotiation.
• It modeled real-life where not everyone you marry is going to have the same sense of responsibility or propensity for doing things they don’t like.

i think about what i would have been like if i had that system growing up. Would i resent my husband less when he doesn’t have the same things to-do-list as i do in my head? Would i be more accepting of his strengths and celebrate them instead of being bitter about his chances to explore them while i force myself to do things i don’t like?

Fairness. Equality. One of these days, i am going to pluck up the courage and only buy one of something and start the conversation going about how life is not the same for everyone and definitely not fair.

That is the other mantra Mom drilled into us, and the one I should have been paying more attention to. She always responded to complaints (sometimes with a smile), “Whoever said life was fair?”