Role Changes Within the Family

I am old school when it comes to motherhood and fatherhood, although I have been a truck driver for over twenty years, so my role changed when my kids were all in older, and my oldest was old enough to watch them after school, but I believe in some basic roles that have not changed. I do believe gender changes are prevalent in our society and some of them are good and some are otherwise. Most people don’t think about the late 1800’s, when our forefathers and mothers toiled the land and I have pictures of my great-grandmother behind a plow pulled by a draft horse. This was the norm; it was not just for the picture. She worked side by side with her husband, plus she cooked and cleaned and everything was from scratch, and washed the clothes by hand and hung them to dry, plus took care of the kids. This was the life they were born into and they knew no other, it was how things worked. Now, as I look around at how women, as a society, are forced to work outside the home due to the economy, I don’t think it is good for young children, and this is my greatest concern. My daughter is a teacher, and there are many children who hardly see their parents, and it shows in their schoolwork and how they behave in school. I think that a man staying home with the children is just okay, but I have only met a few men who have the patients with children that it takes to handle the day in and day out dealings with children. I love it when I see dads changing diapers and soothing a crying baby and some men are exceptional at it, but there is something about a mother with a small child. Another aspect of these changes, are the psychological problems for both men and women. I know some couples that where the woman makes more than the man, and there is a constant rift between them and they will even joke about it, the man in all his progesterone, wants to be the one who provides for the family and I don’t think that will ever change. I also see women who hate to take their little children to daycare and cry as they leave them, it’s just not natural. So the children are at part of this psychological problem also. I raised my children in a community where there was a core group of us who did not work. We were stay-at-home moms, and the dads went off to work an hour away. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we pooled our resources together, and had potlucks every Sunday and this was how we “partied.” We carpooled to our closest town 40 minutes away, with as many as would fit in our cars, and we had a blast. We hardly ate out and cooked all our meals at home; the crock pot was a must for everyone. The economy and social influences told us we should all work so we had money for expensive clothing, jewelry, fancy restraints and vacations, but we chose to stay home with our children. I think there is a lot of wasteful spending that goes along with both parents working and if couples would look at the bottom line, with daycare, eating out and gas to get to a job, there could be another way. This way would be better for their marriage, their community and most of all, their children.