Saturday, April 2, 2016

B is for Brothers--or lack thereof




My sisters and I, but no brothers.
I grew up in a family of four girls and no boys in the 1960's and 1970's--a time when gender roles were changing. The country was going from the traditional roles of women running the household and men bringing in the money to support it to Women's Lib which questioned every male/female role from the past.

So I often wonder if I had had brothers, would they have been treated any differently than the girls in our family. I saw differences in some of my friends' families. In some, the boys didn't have to do any work inside the house including babysitting younger siblings. But the boys had to mow the lawn because it was too "dangerous" for the girls.  In another family, the girls were only expected to get two-year college degrees while the sky was the limit for the boys. While I was used to the indoor/outdoor gender roles, the college difference always bothered me even at the time.

In our family, hard work and education was stressed more than anything else. My parent's hard work and education had allowed them to come from poverty to build a decent lifestyle for us. One of the things I remember that was said to me many times was that I had to have enough education to get a job that could support myself, a husband, and a family because you never knew what would happen.

My parents were a mix in the examples that they set for us in household roles. My mother stayed at home when we were little and went to work full-time when the last one us started school. My father always had a job outside the home, but did cooking and grocery shopping when needed.

How did that translate into what we kids (girls) did? We learned to cook, to sew, to iron, and to babysit. We learned to be caregivers for our grandmother and other elderly in the neighborhood. We also learned to wallpaper and lash a table. My mother would take us to Sunday school and my father would take us fishing and hunting. A little bit of a mix of everything.

Wally and Theo have no sisters.
I just don't know how my "brothers" would have been treated. I'd like to believe that we would have been treated equally (as equally as you can treat different people with different personalities) but I don't know. While I think my brothers would have had to cook, I don't know if they would have had to iron. And while I was ironing, I think they would have been doing more yard work, but I'm not sure.

I only had boys, so I don't really have any experience with a mixed gender family. We tried to raise Wally and Theodore with a set of skills they would need take care of themselves when they were adults. This included jobs across all traditional roles. Would we have treated daughters the same way? Probably, but I don't really know. (Okay, if I'm being honest, I was always envious of how cute little girls clothes were while little boy clothes were just stripes and solids. A girl may have had more clothes.)

So what's your experience? If you had both boys and girls in your family growing up, were they treated differently? Did you or are you seeing differences in the way you treat the boys and girls in your family?



11 comments:

  1. I have brothers. They were treated much differently growing up. I had to do household chores for no allowance, while they did get allowances for doing chores and did not have to help in the house. I had to work for my father's business, for nothing, while my brothers got summer jobs that paid, then got clothes, even cars, while my poverty began as a child, working for my father and learning that women were not equal.

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    1. I have another friend who had a similar arrangement in her household. She still has a lot of baggage from it many years later. I really can't understand the different treatments in your family. It goes way beyond gender roles. Luckily, with at least one of your brothers, you still seem to have a decent relationship.

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    2. I have good relations with both brothers. Wasn't their fault. I don't get to see them as much as I'd like, however.

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    3. I'm happy that things are good with both brothers. It wasn't their fault that they were treated differently than you, but in some families, it's hard to get past that.

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  2. I grew up in the 60s and 70s too. I had a brother--five years younger. He had more rights and opportunities than did I, but my dad did push the idea of college.

    I have only boys, but I can tell you I still see boys privileged over girls. Things haven't changed that much and are getting worse for girls. Look at the anti-women political climate. It's scary.

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    1. It's interesting how we perceive different things. I haven't thought that there is an anti-women political climate. When I have heard someone talk about a woman candidate that they don't like, they always discuss issues. However, I know that I would be naive to think that gender doesn't play a part in how people vote.

      I wonder how many privileges your brother got because he was a boy and how many he got because he was younger. My older sisters claim the last two of us got away with many more things than they did. I think parents naturally relax more with each kid.

      How gender affects how we treat people is all very interesting to think about, but very complicated with perceptions, personalities, and social norms all playing a part.

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  3. My family growing up had me as oldest, my brother in the middle, and my sister as the youngest. Honestly, I think the age order was more important than the genders for us-though my sister and I were pitted against each other like crazy for whatever reason.

    My husband was one of five (girl-boy-girl-girl-boy) and he says he only remembers different "accommodations" being made for the girls, like campgrounds with showers sort of thing but otherwise not a lot of difference in how he was treated (though he was the spoiled, surprise baby boy so that might affect his opinion-in my opinion!).

    Now I have a boy for my first child, he turned 1 in February, and I'm not sure where life will take us as a family but I plan to give me kids the best sense of equality I can.

    Good post :) Happy A to Z!

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    1. It will be interesting to see how things evolve with your son. Until I had kids, I was all about equality for boys and girls and the only differences between them were social conditioning. Well, I don't quite believe that any more. While there should definitely be equal opportunities for everyone, I think there are some innate differences between boys and girls. (Although individual differences, override everything.) In fact, I have a series on my blog, Boys vs. Girls, giving examples of this and I get total agreement that there are some basic differences.

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  4. I had only 1 sister so I can't say but I think a brother would have had more personal freedom. My dad was one of those progressive (for the time thinkers) and insisted I take all the higher maths I could. I was pretty good at it but hated it, so I obviously did not even consider a math major.
    I only had sons and like you, I was not thrilled with the cute clothing inequity, though my sons did wear smocked clothes and english sandals for "dressy" occasions. (Yes I am a product of the deep south) I am not sure what I would have done differently if I had daughters, but I am kind of glad I never had to "do" hair.

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    1. Good point about the hair. My sons' hair always seemed to be sticking out somewhere even if it had just been combed, but that didn't matter to them or me. But we didn't have any long hair or braids to deal with. Theo has long hair now, but that's his business and problem.

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    2. Mine would all love to have long hair, but unfortunately inherited the hair style genetically passed on by my dad's family. On the upside,bald heads require very little shampoo.

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What do you think?