I'd prefer to mow the lawn anyway

The fine gentlemen that presented today on the topic of relationships and roles (focusing mainly on the heterosexual, middle class, white family) showed lots of charts and (skewed) statistics. They even created a survey to see what the Juniata population thought about different family roles. According to their results, the majority of the female population on campus want or are currently in an egalitarian relationship with their significant other. Most of the same students said that their parents held the more traditional roles in the household. I would say that my parents fall between the two. My father does bring home the bacon, but we wouldn't be able to have any luxuries or be living comfortably if my mom did not provide the second income for the family. There is a mutual respect amongst my parents for all that they contribute, both monetarily and the tasks of the household. In regards to tasks of our household, I would say that my sister and I actually do (or did before we graduated and went to colleges too far away to be able to contribute to the home chores) more. We did the dishes, our own laundry by age 10 (now, when we go home for breaks, it is a treat when our mother says she will do our laundry), vacuuming, dusting, mowing the lawn (well we live in the woods, so its more like mowing the ferns), raking, snow shoveling, dog washing, the list goes on. We didn't get an allowance (but we didn't go without much), but this was our parents way of showing us responsibility. Since it is just my sister and I and no brothers, we do everything inside and out. I often wonder if we did have any brothers, how the chores would be divided up. But, looking at how my parents split things up, like I said it is a healthy balance of egalitarian and traditional roles. Mom cooks most of the time, but dad is more of a chef on the holidays and special occasions. It is kind of funny, because sometimes our dad would be in a super good mood and just decide to make a big healthy breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, orange juice and coffee. For no reason in particular, he would do this, but at the same time kind of expect all this praise that he did something that wasn't in his list of things to do. He kinda of has this attitude every time he cooks, which eludes to the fact that he is doing something extra and wants recognition haha! Our mother tells us that she could change a tire if she needed to, but that is what AAA is for (why else would we be paying them ridiculous amounts of money, if we were just going to change the tire ourselves). I think the big take-home piece is that it does not matter who does what, as long as there is a mutual respect and the person wants to be doing said chore. I think it is totally acceptable for the wife to do the laundry and iron her husband's clothes, as long as it is her choice and her husband isn't forcing or disrespecting her to do it. For me, if I ever do decide to get married, I would like to think that everything would have a very egalitarian approach. Taking turns with everything and sharing responsibility sounds for appealing. But at the same time, this isn't to say that the traditional thing works for some people. Who is to say what is right and wrong for anyone? The United States does it all the time to other cultures, but just because we do it, does not make our actions right. We must decide what is good and beneficial for our relationships and have respect for others and their differences.