Roles

I've been thinking a lot about roles lately. Who does what. How the work is divided. I think I've written about this before, but it's sticking in my head a lot right now.

In university at CMU we learned a lot about some pretty incredible thinkers that challenged everything I thought I knew and understood about how the world worked, and my place in that world. After the initial shock wore off, I found that I really liked engaging in thinking about theology and philosophy. After stumbling through the first few theology courses I took Feminist Theology and then things really started falling into place. It wasn't even so much the course content as the reaction of my fellow students to the course content. There was a pervasive mentality that Feminist (women-centered, empowering women) and Liberation (empowering oppressed peoples) weren't as 'good' as 'real' theology. The thinking wasn't advanced or complicated enough. If anyone can pick up a Liberation Theology book and understand it, it couldn't possibly be as important or well-thought-out as a dense work by Yoder, where every line has to be read and scrutinized 20 times to understand it.

This is where things sort of snapped into focus for me. All my life I bucked (or tried to) the trend of 'women's work' and 'men's work'. Now I realized, and voiced vehemently, that the only reason all these MEN (Plato, Kant, Yoder, etc etc) were able to spend days/hours/months/years THINKING and WRITING was because they were being taken care of by women. They didn't have to attend to daily necessities like food and washing. Someone else was providing that for them, making it possible to for them to be 'deep' and 'complicated' and 'real theologians'. (related: when I lived in Germany at the age of 18/19 my job was to take care of the Grandma, but also heard daily 'Die Maenner muessen versorged sein' - The men must be taken care of! You can believe I was not a fan of that phrase and frequently encouraged my host mother to stop worrying herself with her adult son and husband and do to something SHE liked for a change.)

I'm getting riled up all over again, writing about this years and years later. I haven't thought about that part of it in such a long time!

Ok, but to connect all of this to now:

Starting this renovation now means we are juggling many things at the same time. Work demands a lot of energy, clean clothes, and food for lunches. Wedding prep is also under way. We also have friends and family we like to spend time with which requires scheduling, coordinating, and time. We found out last week that the furnace at the rental property needs some serious attention - we're desperately trying to fix it so we don't have to get a new one. Most of the time it feels like I catch one ball only to frantically throw it back into the air in order to catch another one. Jake is in the same boat. The obvious answer to this is to divide up the jobs.

And here is where I find myself thinking, contemplating and trying to reconcile.

First of all, I have to say that Jake is in no way afraid of chores. He works harder than me most of the time, is an excellent cook, and would never in a million YEARS dream of implying that there are certain jobs for him and for me.

It seems that often we fall into 'traditional' roles. Jake has been pulling wainscotting and baseboards off the walls at an incredible pace. He de-nails and labels it all to be used elsewhere or put back. He has been taking trim off the windows and doors oh-so-carefully so it can be reused. This is what he does when he gets home from work. I am not particularly interested in that kind of work - I am impatient and not gentle and would likely break much of it. So I find myself doing other things - cleaning the bathroom, making food, organizing our stuff, packing things away, sorting the kitchen goods into 'need all the time' and 'can stand not to see for 6 months'.

The key here is that I am DRAWN to the inside, support work. I don't know how that happened. When did my fire-cracker, obstinate self smooth out into this person who will keep the fridge stocked and put supper on the table (to be fair, Jake made supper tonight and also just put something together for tomorrow)?

As the renovation goes on I know there will be lots of times when we are both handling tools and doing the building (speaking of which, we just bought a FANTASTIC drill, that I can't WAIT to use. Makita hammer/impact driver, 3 Amp Hour Lithium battery. That's right. It's incredible). And there are lots of times when Jake makes dinner (like today and tomorrow) and does the dishes while I blog.

I guess I'm seeing a change in myself more and more clearly and I spend a good amount of time thinking about whether I should continue to accept this change or fight it.

Underlying all of this is that in my parent's marriage there were some clearly defined roles, and I think some of those things may have contributed to their eventual split. I had the idea, unconscious and unjustified, but I had it nonetheless, that my mom was not as capable as my dad. He was the one that always drove, and fixed things. When they split up I was very concerned that my mom would not be ok because it seemed to me that she didn't know how to do things on her own. I know now that she is stronger than I could have ever imagined, but it took a terrible experience for that part of her to shine through again.

I don't want to lose myself in the support role. If we have children, I want them to know that I am just as capable of using a drill and saw as I am at making supper, and that the same is true of Jake.

I guess this will be something I continue to think about as we go forward. Don't be surprised if you have to read another post on this topic in a month or two :) I'm just trying to figure this whole 'partner in life' thing out. It's pretty awesome and interesting and hard, all at the same time.