Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Following in My Mother’s Footsteps

My mother used to spend her days preparing for my father to come home from work. It seemed that from the moment he left the house in the morning, she would start her preparations, that is, once she got my brother and me off to school. She would clean the house (which included scrubbing the floor on her knees, something she greatly regrets today), shop for what she thought my father would like for dinner, and then get to those preparations. In the years when we were in elementary school and came home for lunch, she would take a break from her cooking and cleaning to make us something to eat, and then back to it. Somehow this would take a whole day, every day.

This dedication to home and husband seemed to work for her, for them, on the whole. Both of my parents were—are—happy; for goodness sakes’, they still hold hands. They had bonded to become one; they became stronger as a unit than each was individually. They each had their own, absolutely traditional, reign of influence: she had the house, the children, and family gatherings, and he had his world of work. They respected each other for what they did in their realms and supported each other.

When it came time for me to form my ‘unit’ I had in mind the patterns that my parents had established. But this was the 80’s and I certainly did not intend to be the sole proprietor of the home. (After all, there were some twists already, I had graduated from college and was working as a technical writer supporting us, while my husband, that man on the bus, was a full-time college student, at first pre-law and then law school.) So we added some feminist liberation twists: shared responsibility for all that relates to the house, as well as food preparation and clean-up. And it pleasantly worked, for a while. I should have known things were no longer aligned when he stopped cleaning the floor (his job) and hired a cleaning man: that it wasn’t just because he didn’t have the time. Although he technically fulfilled his duties, he didn’t keep up his end of the bargain. I was still doing my chores, while he found himself a loophole named William.

Unfortunately, like me, he was also following the pattern laid down by his parents, whereby his father did nothing in the house (unless you consider the occasional horseradish preparation as something) and his mother did everything. But while I was looking to modify the model, keeping a happy balance, he seemed to be trying to recreate it; moreover, there was a huge difference in our roles outside of the house, and no recognition of that at home. This surely created a tension. I felt that I had the right to rebel against the home-based expectations since I was not in a traditional role and so could strive for a recreated model. This was something I was passionate about; I was not a wallflower on this issue. Maybe he tried but was unable to change his actions and expectations, or perhaps he manipulated me from the start, saying what I wanted to hear but going ahead with his own formula for success. Perhaps, he needed to maintain his control at home since he didn’t have any outside of the home while he was just a student sitting in a lecture hall. Whatever the conscious or unconscious reason, I think that this role-perception split did not enable us to create a stable enough basis for the future. Although we were happy for quite a long time (at least I was), this unrecognized tension of who we are and how we—I—needed to be recognized at home probably wore away at our relationship.