This past weekend, my parents came to visit me for a football game and a good time. At the game, I noticed more than ever that I did not really grow up with gender roles in my home. The event that triggered this realization was every time my dad had to lean over to my mom and had to ask what was going on in the game and whether or not he should clap. My whole life has been like this. My parents split the cooking, cleaning and bread-winning.
My mom at times had to act as both parents when my dad was deployed. In this I mean that she had to help get us ready for school, but she also had to be involved with my brother's sports. My mom had to learn how to grill and how to do yard work when my dad couldn't physically be at home because he was providing for my family and his country. My mom had to be strong enough to move heavy furniture around the house before my brothers were old enough to help her. My mom had to learn how to use a drill and tool set. Instead of teaching her daughters one thing, and her sons another, she taught all of us everything since it was clearly important and useful.
My dad sought a goal of teaching his children that they were not too good for either "gender role." Like my mother, he deemed it an important task to make sure his kids knew how to be a self-sufficient adult one day. When my dad would come home from being deployed, he liked to give my mom a break from the kids and responsibilities of maintaining a household. My dad would cook and clean and make sure all of the kids made it to school on time and with matching shoes. My dad was never too proud or too "manly" to skip down the road with my sister and me.
My parents worked together to teach us that we could be and do anything we wanted as long as we worked hard for it. They also taught us to never think someone couldn't do something because they were "just" a boy or "just" a girl.
I think it is important that we teach our (future) kids these same values. They need to know they not only should uphold both ends of the bargain but that they have the ability to. Many girls grow up thinking that they will never know enough about cars to hold their own in a dealership or an auto shop. Many boys will go through life not knowing how to do the grocery shopping or how to do laundry and they hope one day that they will find a woman who does.
So far, the millennials seem to be doing a good job and squashing gender roles, but will they continue to enforce these beliefs? Only time will tell.
