Who Wears the Pants?

 

Remember that phrase, "Just wait until your father gets home!", which exasperated mothers, from a different generation, might have hurled at their rambunctious children?

Nowadays, with the norm of both parents working outside the home, the division of labor no longer a clean dissection between domestic chores and bringing home the bacon, waiting for one's father to restore order on the home front has become a lesson in obsolescence.  Besides the fact that parental gender should be irrelevant to the behavior of our offspring, women can and should be confident in their ability to corral and redirect their kids without the "threat" of a looming male intervention.

The warning that, essentially, it was all going to "hit the fan" once Dad got home, sent messages that are cringeworthy.  First, it diminished Mom's authority over the situation and implied that she was unable to handle less than compliant behavior from her children.  In addition, and likely without meaning to, it villainized the paternal figure, conveying that Father is the "boss", and that bad things were imminent once he found out about the child's infraction.

With a growing number of households exemplifying blurred lines between financial and domestic responsibilities, it is refreshing, nowadays, to see that both men and women are parenting with confidence and in equal partnership.  I am thrilled to observe that we seem to have broken free of the confines of the long-ago stereotypes of each parent fulfilling a pre-determined role in the lives of their children.

A youngster's perception of "who wears the pants" is also a factor in the dynamics of home life and I chuckle to myself as I recall a conversation with my then five-year-old son.

It was January 26, 1999, when "Shepherd One", the papal jet had safely delivered Pope John Paul II to St. Louis Lambert Field.  On this particular winter day, we were "blessed" with an unseasonably warm 54 degrees, (Coincidence? I don't think so!), as the Pontiff's motorcade made its way to a youth rally being held at the former Kiel Center.

Being that the procession was televised, and the educator in me is always ready to embrace a teachable moment, I tuned in to share the magnitude of this event with my children....my Jewish children, who were unfamiliar with whom or what the Pope actually was.

The ensuing dialogue went something like this:

"Do you guys know how extraordinary it is to have the Pope visiting our city??"

"What's a Pope?"

"Oh, my goodness! He is a very important man! It's like he's the BOSS of the whole Catholic religion!"

"Where's his wife?"

"Well, that's just it! He is so important and so special that he doesn't even have a wife because he devotes himself to God!"

At this point in our exchange, I see the wheels turning in my son's mind.  After a brief pause, he quips:

"Well, I guess if he had a wife, he couldn't be the boss anymore!"

Stifling a laugh, I secretly congratulated myself on dispelling the myth of my mother's generation that, within the household, (as well as elsewhere!), women carried less clout than men. We are strong, versatile, and capable! It's okay to be perceived as the one who "wears the pants", but every now and then, I still love to rock a really dazzling dress!

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