I’ve been interested in the concept of social constructs since college. That’s the general time a preppy sorority girl from Alabama would be exposed to the type of lecture a burnt out professor uses to facilitate an actual conversation with their hungover students. Essentially, time or race or religion has no meaning until we give it meaning. Social constructs, i.e. culture, moves and shifts and is completely arbitrary until enough humans buy into a vision. Even as new generations call it a “vibe” and comment on the shifts they feel it still boils down to social construction.
Religion, time, race, and gender, even astrology, are all social constructs. These are all human-made. As much as I am a Capricorn I am she/her, a writer publishing this at 9AM in the morning, and white. All of these things are true, yet only because of their relation to the constructs of others.
So, what are Kate and I if we choose to live a traditional lifestyle (married with children) but combine to make a same-sex partnership? How can we fit in if we are made to stand out not by our own actions but by the perceptions of others? This question comes to mind a lot for us as we navigate the family building process. How much is too much to share with strangers, coworkers, and family? Is this a time we can use to educate others or is our right to privacy accounted for? We don’t choose to be the poster children of lesbian motherhood.
Gender roles are a large part of the zeitgeist whether you seek to uphold them or dismantle them. I think often how families see Kate and I and feel their uncertainty of what box to put us in. When I stepped into a fertility clinic with Kate I wasn’t there to sit among the men who looked very uncomfortable, or with the women who looked very unsure. I was a free floater. My role was different.
I may be the working parent at the moment and the one who voluntarily uses power tools and practices martial arts, but I also cook a majority of the food in our house. I can’t wait to provide Bennett with pancakes, homemade school lunches, and family dinners. Just like my own mother. Even though cooking is traditionally a “feminine” gig Kate literally had a baby, the most “feminine/female” of all gigs.
What makes me a mom is that I am writing this newsletter after getting a cumulative 3 hours of sleep last night because a certain 17lb nightmare fights sleep as if he imagines Kate and I are throwing parties without him. His FOMO is too real. But every time I wake up, bleary eyed and completely dead head I have to control myself not to squeeze the life out of him because I love him so much.
This short newsletter can’t begin to scratch the surface of gender conversations. It is multi-faceted and severely personal. Instead, it’s more a conversation opener. One that I was having alone in my kitchen last weekend as I meal prepped and tried to get our family ready for another period of time with uncertain sleep. If I have any advice for those about to traverse the line between singular/coupled freedom and parenthood: forget the babymoon. Find someone you trust to watch the kid when they are a few months old, travel to a relaxing spot where you can both drink alcohol and get full contact massages, and sleep soundly in tufted hotel pillows. That’s at least the current conversation in our house.
Might be my favorite yet…and clearly the answer is no 😂….cooking will never be in my wheelhouse
I love thinking about these things as well, although I'm better at listening than discussing. Jordan cooks for us because I don't get home early enough to feed him dinner at a normal hour haha, so he's just become the default dinner-cooker for us.