October 3, 2013 • no comments
Why You Want Your Man to Bring Home the Bacon
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Picture this: It’s a fairly typical prehistoric day. Like every other, the sweltering sun is whipping down and your cave, lacking modern ventilation, is as hot as chicken grease- biodegrading your icebox full of berries and your unpreserved cold-cuts. All twelve of your kids are crying and your head is in a tail-spin. You’ve had enough- you’re hungry, tired, and a little pissed off so you find Ugh, your loving, often boneheaded husband, and ask him to go be manly- you know, kill one or two bears and maybe a baby T-Rex for dinner. His response?
“You. Do. It.”
Not quite how you it’s supposed to work, right? The chasm between traditional, even biblical and post-modern, 21st century gender roles has brought us to an interesting, wavering paradigm. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of stay-at-home dads hovers around 3.5 percent. While still low, this number has nearly doubled over the past decade. With the “traditional family” structure in question and the number of single-parent households on the rise, is the question of assigned gender roles even relevant?
As men, we inherently believe that women want to be protected- that they want to feel secure in the context of a relationship. And I think we’ve been conditioned to see ourselves as the much-needed protector. We equate protector and provider to power. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had the opportunity to be exposed to strong, independent, and hard-working women, powerful and protecting in their own right, not needing a man to fulfill that role. And I’m sure most men in the 21st century have seen a strong, independent, and successful woman, as determined by the world’s standards. So as a collective, I think men are questioning, “What is our role if we don’t need to be the breadwinners?” In the past, being the “bread-winner” legitimized us as the head of the household- the visible strength and power source.