Mother’s stand at the kitchen sink pondering something they never tell. -Anne Carson
The Latin culture is largely misogynistic. Being a minority group that already experiences oppression, equality between men and women continues to be a struggle that we face. The blatantly sexist treatment women face is machismo behavior at it’s peak. This is one of our biggest dysfunctions as a culture. My great uncle (may he RIP) spent his entire life calling out my great aunt’s name. “¡Acacia! ¡Trime agua!” (bring me water)” “¡Acacia! ¡Necesito mi cafe!” (I need my coffee)” He was in his study or lounging on the sofa, while she was in the kitchen cooking food for him. As if that wasn’t the epitome of esclavitud (enslavement), she would also serve him his breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as he shamelessly sat there without lifting a finger. I don’t think asking her if she needed help ever crossed his mind. Though this lifestyle and way of thinking is the antipodal to my personal creed, I don’t feel the actual action of a wife serving her husband food is demeaning, I think that being expected to do so, is. The same applies to, if she feels it is her duty as a wife, as a woman. This is subjugation in absolute. The oppressor and the oppressed are both perpetrators of this dysfunctional family dynamic. And the woman who quietly and faithfully abides has not just disparaged the entire feminist movement, perhaps that is not of her concern, but worse, she has demeaned herself as an individual. It’s a very antiquated way of thinking and living. It’s absolutely demoralizing.
Throughout my twenties I became a feminist. (And what I mean by that is whatever I understood it to mean at that age and time. I definitely wasn’t your Eve Ensler and still am not, though I admire her work) I took a feminist course in college and it empowered me so much more than I ever felt before. I knew I could soar, but that course taught me that I could kick some ass too. I was impassioned by women’s liberation and held a strong admiration for those women before who fought for our rights. In the interim, my tolerance level for chauvinistic men grew smaller and smaller. Notwithstanding, that college course, and The Feminist Philosophy Reader, spoke to an unyielding and ambitious young lady. I’m a Mother now. Maternal thinking changes one’s philosophy irrevocably. I don’t mean that it no longer has meaning. It certainly does. Perhaps now more than ever that I have a son. I still say to hell with cultural conventions!
While growing up, both my parents worked. As a result, both shared the household duties and the responsibilities of the kids. We were 3. However, my father did most of the cooking because he genuinely enjoyed it. My mother, on the other hand, despised it. He’d whisk some pretty good breakfasts on weekends. I can actually still smell the eggs and bacon when I think back. Eventually, my brother and I also learned how to cook. Hence, I didn’t grow up in some kind of alpha male family dynamic. On the contrary, my mother took the helm of the house and family. She was independent and strong. That’s the kind of woman I saw and still see in her. That’s the kind of woman I too grew up to be. However, our trajectories are vastly different. I don’t work and I only have one child. Which is why I ask myself while standing at the kitchen counter dicing garlic, what will this teach my son?
Sundays are inevitably cooking day for me. Such a conventional task for the unconventional. As I begrudgingly walk into the kitchen, I hear my husband begin, Jack and Jill. Reading Mother Goose nursery rhymes to our son in the mornings is how they begin their days, while I take a deep breath and begin preparing my cooking area. It’s hours in the kitchen as I cook enough for a week. Hence, in big quantities. Once I’m done cooking, my job does not end there as now the cleaning begins. I have always said, I have OCDs that I cannot put on the shelf and a dirty kitchen is intolerable. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing there are dishes in the sink. So I ask again, what will this teach my son? How will this affect his perception of women and me, as his Mom?
Unless I do something about it, he will grow up to see his mom do nothing but domesticated work. He will hear people ask me, “What is it that you do?” And I will respond, “I’m a stay-at-home-mom.” However, that’s not the problem. The underlying problem is how he will interpret that. What he will understand from that? He’ll see that I don’t work, at least not a job that has any financial contribution. Not your respectable, sit-in-an-office-all-day- 9-to-5 job. Yes, he’ll see me write, but will he consider that honorable? (there is a stigma for writing as a vocation) I write, but I’m not a writer. (I haven’t written anything of worth. I’m nowhere close to writing a book. Perhaps writing a book is not in the stars for me. Maybe I’m more of a columnist writer. Who knows?) I would say the stigma applies to all artists. Painters, photographers, musicians. Society does not see art as a distinguishable way to live life because the first thing everyone thinks about is whether or not this will make you money, and those same people (at least most of them) preach about how money isn’t everything. The argument is arbitrary and so are those who judge us for losing ourselves in something they don’t have the talent or guts to do.
What I don’t want. My fear. My son growing up to believe this is a woman’s role….Or to believe that this is what defines a woman, or, more importantly, me. Will he see me as inadequate? Will he understand that stay at home moms do have ambitions? Will he get that I dream too, just like everyone else? Will he embrace that he is one of my dreams? And hence, I remain at home. I want him to know that I am self-sufficient despite my financial dependency. I want him to know that above all, I am autonomous, despite the contradiction, as I continue in many ways to live by my own values. But how do I teach him the contrary, when he sees his own mother doing the exact thing she is proclaiming women don’t have to do? Will he think of me as a hypocrite? Perhaps completely full of sh*t?
I am slipping into a traditional lifestyle. Me! I cannot help but to wonder if I am disappointing a generation of women before me who fought for us to dream big. Or is this more about me? Am I disappointing myself as a person and as a mother? I mean, I’m wearing an apron. Need I say more? In my inner turmoil I feel torn. I will have to make it a point to tell him that women do not belong in the kitchen. Nor should women be expected to do any of the following: Reproduce, get married, leave their jobs because they got married, leave their jobs because they have a child/children, cook (much less cook for their husbands, in spite of what the Bible preaches), or clean.
However, that does not mean I don’t admire or respect women like the iconic chef, Julia Child. Cooking was a passion and her career. Any such person (man or woman) who loves to cook, get kudos points from me. What my heart desires is that I want him to understand that what he sees does not mean every woman should do the same. I want him to know that every woman is different and how they choose to play the role of mother is a very personal one and should be respected, as is the role of a wife. That he should commend those who work and go home at the end of the day, to spend time with their children. I want him to understand that being a SAHM mom was a choice I made long before he was born and not because I wanted to be that, but because I wanted to write. (Actually, that made me a House Wife. A label I have long loathed). That being a SAHM is, in many ways, a luxury. I get to spend all my time with him. Time that many parents don’t have and wish they did. I want him to learn that there is a person who resides in this body who has aspirations. Being the one mostly in the kitchen does not diminish them. I want him to also learn that boys should not be mocked for taking a home economics class, or men a cooking class. That cooking is manly, despite what society thinks. I refuse to have my son leave for college not knowing how to even boil water. My son will come into that kitchen with me when the time comes, and I will teach him at the very least the basics. Because in my eyes, that is part of being a self-reliant man. I’m treading a slippery slope. I don’t mean to say that I resent my role as a SAHM. Being home with my son fulfills me and everything that it entails I do with joy. He doesn’t have to rely on fast foods, or quick-fix meals. However, there’s a difference between cooking for your children because you are the mom, the adult, the primary caregiver, and being expected to cook for your husband. I’m just afraid he may grow up to have the wrong perspective.
Linjen Neogi is a passionate writer who blogs about Motherhood and anything that keeps her awake at night. She was born in Dominican Republic, raised in Miami and currently resides in Brooklyn with her two year old loving son, Ishaan and her biggest critic, her husband Tapas. She idolizes everything New York.
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Photo by Alyson McPhee