Working outside the home and traditional family gender roles: Is it time to reconsider?

First of all, HUH? That was my first reaction when I read this debate topic. What exactly are we supposed to be reconsidering? And what are “traditional family gender roles”? Are tradional family gender roles where Mom spends all day at home in her dress and high heels as she cooks and cleans. Then Dad comes home in the evening from working at the office and after dinner he sits in his easy chair smoking his pipe and reading the paper. Of course the wife has had to wait for the husband to get home to drive her to the grocery store, because, well it isn’t very feminine for a woman to be driving.

OK, that is all a bit extreme, I know. But still ARE traditional family gender roles where the man works outside the home and the woman stays home and tends to the children and the house? IF that is the case, I honestly believe that has NEVER happened.

Seems to me like women have been working outside the home for thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years or longer. Men have been helping with the children and household chores for just as many years. MY own grandmother worked outside the home at an office job as early as sometime in the thirties. My other grandmother tended to the animals on the farm back then too. Both of my grandfathers washed dishes, cooked, and helped change babies diapers. My great-grandmother worked the books for the farm they tended to, harvested the crops, and did the farm’s and the family taxes.

Both of my parents worked outside the home while we were growing up. I also remember both of my parents spending plenty of time with me and my four siblings. I remember my dad vacuuming and doing other household chores. One thing my dad didn’t do was cook, because well he was not much of a cook (still isn’t). He did however go to the grocery store and buy frozen meals he could put in the oven which decades later became the microwave. Recently my mom was on the hospital for about a month. So I went to help out my dad. My mom kept telling me to be sure to help my dad and, to tell the truth, I couldn’t figure out what he needed help with. He knows how to do laundry, how to wash dishes, how to clean and vacuum and of course how to microwave a dinner. I even asked him what he needed help doing. His response was “Nothing really”.

So, in my opion I don’t believe there has ever really been a “traditional family gender role”.

As far as working outside the home the traditions of gender specific jobs was broken many decades ago. Women have been working outside the home for quite some time now. There are many women who have been working in “traditional male jobs”; doctors, construction workers, fire fighters, police officers, military combat, professional athletes and a host of many other jobs. Men have been working for quite sometime at “traditional female jobs” as well; teachers, nurses, secretaries, wait staff, librarians, and many other jobs.

So to answer the question: “Working outside the home and traditional family gender roles: Is it time to reconsider?” Huh, I don’t think so. If we reconsidered NOW, it would mean that women stayed at home tending to all the children’s needs as well as all the household’s needs and DON’T work outside the home at all. It would also mean that men went to the office, then came home and did nothing around the house to help with the children and household chores. That has not happened in many many years, and NOPE, I don’t believe it should. Each gender, both male and female should share equally with household work and if possible work outside the home. That is what I believe makes for a healthy happy home.