Meg This is Life

The Modern Wife

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the modern wife. I’ve always thought about the balanced modern WOMAN and how she would look. Now that I am into my second year of being a WIFE, I’m beginning to formulate opinions of what that all entails. Society is shifting. Even my own mother’s life is not what it was when we were kids. Although my dad was the breadwinner, and she stayed at home with us, she was quite the go-getter. It seems to have multiplied now that we are out of the house. Always moving, always doing. She is an accomplished pianist with all sorts of gigs to fill up her week. Not to mention that she does hours of volunteer work and is an immaculate housekeeper and cook. My dad has always taken pride in keeping the house looking great, too. He cooks and cleans and is certainly not one to sit on the couch and be waited on. Their home is their sanctuary  and their partnership and it shows. But their life is still a whirlwind.

I came across this article yesterday entitled, My So-Called Wife. The author, Sandra Tsing Loh, talks about how much home life has changed. There used to be two roles: the breadwinner and the homemaker. Now, the roles are combined and then split, with the lines being somewhat blurry. A “wife” does not carry the same connotation that it used to. The author says that she longs for the days of having a “wife.” Not that SHE wants to be one, but she does want to HAVE one - well, at least someone to take care of all the traditional wife roles. The thing that stuck out to me the most was when she pointed out that since both husband and wife are sharing roles neither get the appreciation that the individual roles used to demand. If you are working and housekeeping, and so is your spouse, its not as  easy to be appreciative of what they do, since its the SAME thing you are doing: “as the Tupperware totters lopsidedly about, in the domestic equation, the work I do at home is no longer a gift, but the labor of a mediocre colleague whose performance could be better.”  She calls the husband and wife duo “domestic co-laborers” and says that “the home has become increasingly invaded by the ethos of work, work, work, with twin sets of external clocks imposed on a household’s natural rhythms.” It seems like survival mode has overtaken all of us. But is that really what we WANT?

I once heard a college professor say that he thought the perfect world would consist of each parent working 20 hours a week. Together, a full-time job could be performed, money earned, children and home cared for and family time enjoyed. That sounds magical, doesn’t it? We wouldn’t have to be going 100 mph all the time. We could work, live out our passions, eat, live, socialize, rest….

I certainly don’t want to give up equality or any career dreams in the name of efficiency, but what is the BEST way to balance everything between you & your husband & 2 jobs? And, how does this environment change once  a child is introduced into the chaos? Can life be more simply lived without giving up passions & dreams, while still living securely and responsibly? Can we really have it all? What do YOU think?

PS: Don’t forget to thank your significant other for what they did today - whether they went to work or cleaned up the kitchen. Appreciation can go a long way in a marriage.