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So, once again, I hosted my in-laws. Yes, those in-laws. The racist-ass ones. The ones that can’t absolutely shut the fuck up if they were offered wealth beyond their dreams.
I put on my ‘I’m going to pretend I like you for a few hours‘ face and hosted them as we had a family gathering. With the usual this is what you should be doing with your life and your home and addition to them still treating their very grown-ass sons like they’re Bear’s age, I also had to deal with my meddling mother-in-law making a 1950’s suggestion.
“Do you want a daughter, Crystal? When you have a daughter, you should teach her how to cook and clean!”
Yeah, did your record scratched? Because mine sure in the hell did.
Wait…it gets better:
“Cooking and cleaning aren’t gender-specific roles.” I told her. “Bear also helps me cook and he cleans his room.”
“Yes, but your daughter really needs to learn this so she can grow up to be a good wife!”
All the while I’m thinking of that famous Cardi B. lyric – I don’t cook, I don’t clean, but let me show you how I got this ring!
While I was alarmed about my MIL’s blatant throwback to whatever good ol’ days she thought she came from, it also made me realize people don’t know what the difference is between gender roles and life skills are, and some are often interchangeable.
Gender roles are those that are stereotypically reserved for a certain gender and it’s a really outdated concept. Women can be construction workers and men can be nurses.
Life skills, however, are things everyone should know how to do regardless of gender: cook, clean, swim, laundry, ironing, change a flat tire, perform CPR, etc. There is no rulebook that states only a woman has to cook and clean while the man works.
Now, this conversation is particularly funny because after Bear was born, my in-laws were imploring my husband for me to go back to work. They know I write and they know I make money off my writing, but they don’t know how much (and that’s intentional because it truly is none of their fucking business).
But it’s hilarious for them to say for years I needed to go back to work (they felt if I went back to work, it would free up my husband to give them more of his money instead of him using his money to…oh, I don’t know…support his wife and child) and now they’re liking I stay at home. Well, yeah. I take care of my household and everyone in it. Win-win for everyone.
We’re a two-income family and always have been. I’m too independent to be completely dependent on my husband. I love to write and I make a pretty good living from it. But that’s not the point. Why is cooking and cleaning only considered to be a woman’s job?
It reminds me of when there was an uproar some months ago on Twitter about a little boy playing a kitchen set and how some men – and pick-me women – were claiming it was encouraging the boy to become effeminate and soft. I’m pretty sure very famous chefs like Gordon Ramsey, Wolfgang Puck, and a host of other famous Black chefs beg to differ.
It’s been a weird thing on social media where people are trying to push for things the way they were. I can understand with the Covid era, it’s sad to sometimes reminisce about things and how much open we were with each other. Nowadays, with the six-feet apart minimum, masks everywhere, and vaccinations required for certain places, it can kinda suck the fun out.
But now, you have people wanting to go a step further – women should stay home. Men should be the sole providers. Abortion should be illegal. There is nothing wrong with separate but equal. You see where I’m going with this? It’s going from people having a rather interesting opinion to now they want to make laws to ensure it happens.
My MIL used to be a doctor; a child psychologist. When she migrated to the U.S., she gave up all those dreams because her husband, my FIL, demanded she stayed home. She doesn’t like to tell the story because it brings up bad memories. This also happened so long ago that it really doesn’t matter too much anymore.
However, my MIL is a woman who was a SAHM by force, not choice. She had to cook and clean by force. With me, it’s always been a choice. I could go back to work anytime I wanted to. I chose not to. I wasn’t happy working at all. I preferred writing and I still do. I’m more than happy to do house chores while writing a 300-page novel.
My original dream was to become a lawyer. I gave up on the dream when it occurred to me I couldn’t afford law school and I was reluctant to take out more loans to do so. If I really wanted to become a lawyer, I still can and my hubby will support me all the way.
Would I be as happy being a lawyer arguing over torts and contracts as I do writing about nonsensical stuff? I don’t know. I can’t say a definitive yes or no to that. When I was out of the house in 2020 doing deliveries, I made serious bank. Maks and I were swimming in money. But guess what? I was also out of the house upwards to 50 hours a week. That’s a lot. Bear flat-out told me he liked me being at home. That was more than enough to convince me I don’t want to work outside of the home again.
And let’s keep it all the way one hundred, a lot of women can also be messy and unkempt as all hell. Watching just one season of HOARDERS, and you’ll see the vast majority of the people on the show are women. My MIL herself has a hoarding problem.
It doesn’t slip past me there also might be a racial connotation with my in-laws. Black women are also known to be caregivers – the girls, the nannies, the wet nurses, the cooks, the maids, etc. My Granny was once a girl and so was my mother. I also played that role when I did grocery shopping and deliveries for wealthy white people during the height of the pandemic.
While my in-laws might think they’re giving me a compliment because they see a clean house and eat a delicious meal, I also see what they’re not saying. Within the past two years, their dogwhistles about living with us have become flat-out conversations, to the point my MIL asked if there was a a way we could ask our landlords to add a second story to our duplex (even if they could, I still wouldn’t ask them because FUCK THAT SHIT).
After all, this is the same MIL whenever she gets angry enough, somehow my race becomes a factor when it shouldn’t matter to begin with. It’s bad enough I’m related to a racist, I damn sure don’t want to be living with one.
Back to gender roles: whenever I bake, Bear is in the kitchen with me. He’s helped me make cookies and waffles, and he’s also helped me make hamburgers. He’s helped Maks make Russian salad and grill. Bear also knows he needs to clean up after himself and he keeps his room pretty clean.
It’s time to stop setting ridiculous gender roles when it comes to children. They don’t need to have a ‘boys only doing this and girls only do that.’ It’s setting up a pretty dangerous precedent and quite frankly, it’s hella asshole-ish for anyone to put whatever issues they have on a child! Let them be little. Let them be great.
And in-laws, pretty please, shut the fuck up.
