Gender Neutral Roles
When Ricky married me, he knew exactly what he was getting into. I don’t cook. I don’t bake. I don’t clean. And I don’t fold my laundry. I am not domestic and he loved me nevertheless.
We were as equal as they come, not only husband and wife, but even as individuals. We went to the same medical school, we earned similar board exam scores, we matched the same residency program and we both went on to fellowship. As newlyweds, we allowed each other to prioritize our careers and agreed to spend our second year of marriage in two separate cities: St. Louis and Baltimore to pursue training at Washington University and Johns Hopkins University, respectively. Our stories were parallel. Ricky went from the hood to Hopkins and I transformed trauma to triumph. For more or less, he was raised by his father from Honduras and I was raised by my mother from Vietnam. He balances me out and we are perfectly meant for each other.
Ricky is very in tuned with how I perceive the world as a woman of color and, although he is sensitive to my experiences outside of our home, gender roles did not seem to impact our relationship. I would have described us as gender neutral as it gets. So it was no surprise when I got pregnant with Skylar in 2019, we opted not to reveal the sex and showered our baby-to-be with shades of gray and yellow hues. The feminist in me was deeply convinced there were no significant differences between male and female, boy and girl, son and daughter, or husband and wife.
Then a few weeks ago, we were both cleaning up the kitchen and he turns to me and asks, “Did you take out the trash?” I didn’t understand the question. The garbage was empty and in plain view. Yes.
“No, it’s trash day tomorrow, isn’t it? Did you take the trash barrels out?” He clarified.
With some serious side eye, I responded with a big, fat NO. “Why would I do that?” I literally had never rolled the trash barrels out to the street since we bought our house over two years ago. I was confused as to why he thought I would suddenly start now. Ricky went on to explain that we were falling into our gender roles and questioned why that task was solely his responsibility. So, I begrudgingly agreed to alternate weeks with him. He was right, but I could not shake the irritation in me for the rest of the night. I slept on it and thought about his request for days trying to understand why it made me so upset. In reality, we do split most chores. When trash day came the following week, I parked the car after work and dragged those four giant barrels down the driveway before coming inside to see the kids. That wasn’t so bad, I thought.
Since that evening’s exchange, I have been looking back and trying to analyze our family dynamics. Our lives are hectic. We are both full-time physicians with leadership obligations and 4 children under the age of 4. At first glance, we are still gender neutral. We both change diapers. I work. He works. We both take turns waking up with our newborn, Zuri, every other night. He does the dishes. So do I.
However, when I look a little closer, I must confess that gender, whether it is bias or expectations or roles or even simple observations, are creeping into our family of six. When Skylar was 1 year old, I saw her try to put a diaper on a stuffed animal, and then on a doll my sister bought her. There is now a ban on dolls in my house. None of the girls get baby dolls. They will have the rest of the their lives to feel their own maternal instinct and the society’s pressure on what that means for them. It won’t start here. However, despite all of the children witnessing both their Mom and Dad changing diapers and giving bottles, I have never once seen Maverick show the slightest interest in caring for a stuffed animal in that way. Maybe coincidence. Then I find myself frustrated when Skylar, now 3 years old, refuses to wear another beautiful dress that I have bought her. They hang in her closet, crisp with tags still attached to them, and each time I bring them out and present them to her, she slaps the floral and ruffles out of her face. Then in the same point, I cringe when she tells me that she’s a princess. I don’t understand myself when I think about the emotions that are provoked in me during these moments.
On the other end, I also have a son- a Maverick at that. I blog about how it doesn’t feel as natural for me to raise a strong boy as it is to raise a strong girl (so thank goodness for Daddy and much respect to single mothers with sons). Maverick is unique to my purpose on this earth. He has his own space from the girls. He is a boy growing up in a man’s world that his mother wants to be recognized and respected in. So when I hear family members tell Maverick, “big boys don’t cry,” I either encourage them to say the same to Skylar, Naomi and one day, Zuri. “Big girls don’t cry.” The same phrase when they fall and hurt themselves or just want a hug from Mommy as they do to Maverick. Or his daddy tells him, if he has a good reason to cry then he can cry. Then not too long afterwards, I overheard someone tell him that pink is for girls. I didn’t stop them. I didn’t tell Maverick otherwise, but it left me feeling uneasy. I am outspoken and opinionated about the prior scenario, yet I hold back in this one. To me, young children like mine, see color as color, a spectrum of shades with no underlying significance or sense of belonging to one gender or another. I think that they just like a color because it makes them happy somehow before society creates a bias for them. I felt so wrong for not intervening. When I brought it up to Ricky later that evening he told me it was okay, and asked if I would let Maverick buy pink underwear at the store. I didn’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I really couldn’t answer him. Then I wondered why my own favorite color was pink, like bright, neon, “Barbie” pink. Did this color make me happy?
The more I thought about it, the more I kept noticing it at home.
We filtered our Au Pair search to females.
I keep buying Skylar dresses.
Maverick only has blue sippy cups.
Once during the car ride to daycare, they said “You don’t work Mommy, you’re not a Daddy.” Was I reading too much into everything? They see me get up every morning with their dad and leave for work, but for some reason, Daddy works and I don’t. I helped them understand clearly real fast. Yet I can’t help, but perseverate on how a comment like this originated in those curious and growing minds of theirs’?
It’s so hard to balance between shaping and nourishing their opinions of themselves. It’s even harder balancing the world as they see it and the world we show them. The line between confusion and reassurance can sometimes get blurry and I am constantly struggling with prominent societal and cultural norms that are not parallel with our values. The concept of gender roles is deeply complicated and almost impossible to escape. My naivete has worn away. After having children, I have realized that despite the effort we put into creating a gender neutral environment, no one is immune to these biases. In a pink and blue world, there is seems to be an awful lot of gray. Until I can figure it out, I will keep taking out the trash.
