Blog # 3

Blog 3

 

Throughout class we were discussing the gender roles of motherhood and fathers within the household and I found it very interesting to hear the differences within other peoples households and the experiences that others had experienced. I heard from one of the girls that, the traditional way a family is thought to be like was the way her household was ran, for instance: her mother and father would come home from work and it was common knowledge to know that her mother was to be making dinner. This was shocking, in the sense that a class mate who spoke up about how her household was very different in the sense that she grew up with only a mother in the household.

For I had my own experience growing up where my mother and father both worked but both took on roles for the house. My mother usually doing the bills while my father was doing more "womanly" things such as cooking and cleaning. However, he was also outside doing the more "manly" activities such as fixing the house and grilling on the grill. I saw a mixture of things not only within my family but the family's surrounding us who both shared the household roles and I'm very greatful to have been able to experience both.

I also wanted to point out when Susan Rubin Suleiman makes a statement about how she writes poetry and feels that she's noones mother but she's just herself. To me that's a very powerful statement in regards to my personal experiences. Motherhood isn't exactly the easiest thing and I find that the women in my family are very strong. My grandmother had ten children and her husband, my grandfather, passed away at age 51, leaving her to raise ten children on her own. All ten of her children became very succesfull and smart people. She then had to watch two of her daughters pass away from breast cancer and still care for 8 other children as well as grandchildren at this point. With this, I feel that his specific quote can relate to my grandmother because she was always strong through it all and still is today, and that even though she had to always be that strong mother that I know she had her moments where she had to have a moment to herself, and not be a mother, whether it was poetry like Suleiman, or even just a simple walk in the park.