I just left my husband alone with our two children for sixteen days. I was not worried about anything regarding the house, their food, or their wellbeing. I put all the appointments in the family calendar and my husband checked it and kept them. I literally did not worry about them. I missed them, and I was sad that they missed me, but I didn’t worry about them AT ALL. I need to impress upon you all that I missed their company, but was not worried for their welfare.
I also did no meal prep. I don’t even think I went shopping right before I left.
This is not about apples and oranges. This isn’t even about my husband. This is about the fact that this is apparently WEIRD.
Another mum at my daughter’s school is leaving for ten days. She’s taking her youngest (who is a very small baby) and leaving her husband with their two girls. She has been cooking for days preparing freezer meals. She’s panicking and deputizing her six year old to remind him how to make school lunches. AND I AM APPALLED.
A) He is definitely not helpless. (He’s a doctor or something.) What gendered bullshit. B) THAT LITTLE GIRL IS NOT OLD ENOUGH TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HER AND HER SISTER’S WELLBEING. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. C) Why is she married to this person and creating children with him if he’s this big of an idiot?
While she was laughingly recounting this, the other mums were nodding and smiling sympathetically, like oh yes, I too have my caveman at home!! Such managing required! I was the only one who was like “Dude, he’ll be fine. Literally. He will be fine.” I said it a lot. She was not convinced. She kept bringing up her older daughter. She’ll be like a little mum!
NO.
NO NO NO NO.
NO.
Straight women, don’t do this shit. It’s gross. Don’t infantilize your husbands and then expect your daughters to pick up the slack. So fucking gross. So. So. GROSS.
The fact that so many adults think a six year old girl is more capable of learning and performing basic domestic tasks than a grown-ass man says it all, really.
Not to mention that when you make your little kids responsible for the welfare or behavior of others, it really fucks them up.
I bet a lot of you have experienced it. A hyperactive sense of responsibility? Constantly, actively on the lookout for others even when, if you think about it, it’s none of your goddamn business and/or shouldn’t be a demand placed on you? Maybe you blame yourself for things that reasonably speaking are beyond your control. It’s the difference between “I empathize with this person and perhaps want to help them” vs. a guilt or anxiety-driven NEED to do so. It’s also that feeling, when things are getting out of control, that if you could only find the right way to help then you could fix it all. And “I’ll take care of myself once everyone else is taken care of.”
Now think back to when you were a kid. Especially if you were raised as a girl. How early did people start expecting you to take care of others?
Over-responsibility is a well-known behavioral pattern among the children of alcoholics, but that’s not the only way it can happen. It’s also one of the factors in a co-dependent relationship, because an over-responsible person often feels accomplished and validated when they are successful in taking care of someone.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2a0blZQ