My neighbor recently found out that my husband & I are members of the local firing range & was interested in going to shoot. So we arranged to go on Saturday. When I checked in with her that day, she indicated that her partner had gone and she wasn’t sure when he’d be back to take care of the kids. When he got home, she told me she’d have to postpone, since he had injured his toe and couldn’t care for the girls.
Yesterday, he was hanging out in the courtyard walking around normally & singing (as he is wont to do). I said, “I guess your toe is feeling better” at which point my husband asked him what happened. He had been helping install a fridge and was helping support it with his foot (it was a tight space so he couldn’t quite put his hands around it). But he was walking & talking just fine. Fine enough, in my book, to watch his kids for a few hours while I whisked my neighbor away.
My point here is not the shooting range or the fridge or even the toe. It’s the poor-me-ness that he exuded from every pore. I felt like telling him to stand up & take it like a woman, for FSM’s sake! Take it like a woman who doesn’t have the option to not take care of her children. Take it like a woman who works full time before coming home to care for her family. Take it like a woman who will still make dinner (even if it’s from frozen) even if she’s feeling sick. Take it like the woman you’re living with, who will complain and bitch but at the end of the day knows that no one else will do what she does. And stop being such a man about it.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Tammy Takahashi // Apr 24, 2007 at 10:16 am
Miko, this is so true!
I’ve broken two toes, pulled a tendon in the bottom of my foot and sprained my ankle. All four events happened when I had a baby to carry around. (Funny, I haven’t hurt my feet since my ‘babies’ became self-sufficient children.) In any case, all four times, I had no choice but to take care of my children, carry them around, get them places and do all the normal stuff I had to do, even though my foot/ankle was swollen like a watermelon and in almost constant pain. I guess I never considered any other option.
The same is true when I’m sick with the flu (with the exception of when I’m literally chained to the bathroom), when I have a sinus infection, when I didn’t sleep the night before, etc.
What’s interesting though, is that hubby is this way about going to work. He would have to be pretty much on his death bed not to go in to work (sometimes to the chagrin to the people who work near him and don’t want to catch his virus). In his position, I would certainly opt to stay home and rest, if I had the choice.
Perhaps it’s gender roles? Perhaps it’s cultural? Perhaps it’s genetic? For me to not take care of my kids, I have to be literally incapacitated. For my husband not to go to work, the same.
The male/female thing fascinates me. Having a psych background, and just being curious about human nature, I often wonder what of our behavior is a choice, and what of it is unavoidable because of the chemicals in our brains and bodies? And how much cultural definitions attempt to curtail our natural tendencies?
Thanks for the post. Got the ole brain cells churning. That’s always good.
2 Miko // Apr 24, 2007 at 11:11 am
I have to admit that I do not claim to be forebearing in all things…or even anything. But this man’s partner truly is always there, taking care of her kids & of him. The toe thing just pissed me off…
3 Tammy Takahashi // Apr 24, 2007 at 12:24 pm
I used to be so mad at my hubby’s g-pa for taking advantage of my hubby’s g-ma and dragging her around everywhere even when she was sick (he’s a paper goods tradesman) and putting pressure on her to keep the house up and keep the family going, etc….
Well, my hubby’s mom said, “Uhm, Tammy, he doesn’t put pressure on her to do that. She’s the one who *wants* to do all those things.”
Not saying your neighbor necessarily wants to always take care of her partner and kids… but maybe she does? Cuz, see, if that were my hubby, or your hubby, we would have both said, “you’re not that broken, see you in a few hours.” Her choice was to not say that and let him say “poor me” or whatever. What I’m basically saying is that things like this are never one-sided.
Still, I can see why it pissed you off.
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