The following is a very personal, honest appraisal of what I believe and have learned through my experience in my life. I make no claims that it is right or wrong, that it works or doesn't work, that it is something that has any value to you. I share it as part of my learning experience in the hopes that some part might be of value. You'll have to figure out, for yourself, what works for you!
With that qualifier...
I was raised in a tradition of male/female and their corresponding man/woman roles.
- I was encouraged to be competitive, and to be accepting of the resulting top-dog-down "pyramid" hierarchy.
- Risks became second-nature to me, since the cost of failure (losing) was small in a world where there is only one winner, and it wasn't me, yet.
- I was discouraged from being emotional and social. "Men don't cry!" "Walk it off!" "Get back in there!" "Nobody cares about how you feel. It's what you DO that counts!"
- Early on, I modeled my behavior after both my mother and father. After age six, I was ridiculed if I was "a momma's boy".
By my teenage years, I had learned that I wasn't the strongest (and wasn't ever going to be). I was smarter than most, though, so that's where I competed. I was also less connected to my emotions (Asperger's?), so became known for my "performance under fire" and "calm in the storm" abilities.
My female friends in high school (1968-73) were involved with the women's movement, and I was supportive. When my high school sweetheart moved in with me in college, we agreed on 50/50 equality in all aspects: financial, social, decision-making, etc.
We remained at 50/50 (with some adjustments due to college expenses), until we had a child. Even then, we held tight to 50/50 as long as possible, but slowly shifted our roles towards more traditional lines as we had a second, and then a third child.
For a number of reasons, our marriage ended by the time our youngest was six. I became painfully aware of the challenges my wife and I had failed to meet. One of these challenges was our refusal to move from a 50/50 decision-making model. The problem was, if we didn't agree, then the status quo won, which rarely pleased either of us.
My lesson learned? If I didn't want a marriage to end in another stalemate, my wife and I would need to establish domains of authority, where either she or I would have the final word in the event of a stalemate. For traditional man/woman roles, these domains tend to be defined as inside (woman) and outside (man).
"Inside" is the domain of the home, the domain of feelings. The woman is in charge of the home. She is responsible for the children (until they start to leave the house), feeding the family, decorating, cleaning, and maintaining the aspects of a house that make it a home. Most importantly, she is responsible for managing relationships and emotions of all within the home. One of her primary responsibilities is teaching unconditional love. Her greatest challenge is letting go, letting her children become independent, leaving the home, letting her children suffer the consequences of their own decisions.
"Outside" is the domain of the world beyond the confines of the house. The man is in charge of maintaining the overall integrity of the house (as opposed to the home). This includes all "infrastructure" (heating, plumbing, electricity, phone, internet, etc.). It also includes those aspects of family that are outside the house: taking care of the yard, the car, the job. One of his primary responsibilities is making the home safe for women and children, supporting the teaching of unconditional love. He is responsible for protecting his wife from influences which might cause her emotional hurt and withdrawal (fear, threats, use of verbal or physical force, etc.) The man is also responsible for training the children to survive outside the safety of the home. He does this by letting go of the children, encouraging them to make their own decisions, letting his children suffer the consequences of their own decisions, and teaching them to get back on their feet after every failure.
Note: Money, because it crosses between inside and outside, might be the domain of the man or woman, often dictated by whomever is best at managing a budget and thinking of the future of the family. Successfully managing money means saying no to short term wants and needs in deference to long term wants and needs.
Before my second marriage, I openly expressed my outside role. This made me more attractive to any partner who was committed to the inside role.
I married (and am still married to) a woman who accepts those inside responsibilities. Our marriage, rough and rocky at times, survives to this day because we know our strengths and weaknesses, and our chosen roles.
I have seen how times have changed, and accept with open arms the morphing of man and woman across male and female. I am comfortable with a much wider, more flexible, variety of family definitions.
Hence my adoption of the "inside/outside" perspective instead of "man/woman" and/or "male/female".
If a person wants to have a home and family with another person, I support all variations. I ask only that, if you are going to raise children, you need to think of them, too.
In particular, I hope, somehow, the children get to experience the safety of the home, the unconditional love of the parents, as well as being trained and expected to become independent.
My experience is that it is much easier to raise a child with a village, but since villages are not so committed to raising children these days, raising children as a couple is easier if the roles are divvied up, allowing each adult to specialize and become an expert in their agreed-upon roles.
WARNING! That's my two cents, and it's what worked for me. Unfortunately, because I learned from my divorce, my children were already 13, nine, and six. They would probably give me mixed ratings as a parent. Add to that my Asperger tendencies of poor emotional awareness, and I might think my advice sounds good, but it is actually bad. To all who get advice: Use what works! Throw out the rest!
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