People often ask me how it is that a Pakistani man does so much of this kind of so-called women's work and doesn't make a big fuss about it. The answer is one of my best jokes - the best thing about intercultural marriage is he has no idea that this is abnormal. Intercultural marriage means I get to say "Oh, YEAH! Fathers are ALWAYS in charge of bathtime!"
It goes both ways too. M also gets to make his own middle. In Pakistan he'd be expected to do all of the grocery shopping, home maintenance and running around town. Instead I pay water bills, get the oil changed in the cars, and arrange to have our gutters cleaned. (A student's schedule makes me the natural choice for the waiting-around-at-the-mechanic work.)
(Also, interestingly, it doesn't matter what the broader culture says about certain things, it only matters what the spouse's family says about certain things. So it doesn't matter if M readily knows that not all American dads are in charge of bathtimes, it only matters that men in MY family are in charge of bath times (false). Likewise, it doesn't matter that some women do their own grocery shopping in Pakistan, it only matter than in M's family, his father does all the grocery shopping. We all get our cultural norms from our own families. Or we fabricate them and then falsely attribute them to said families.)
Because we both chose this life - chose to make a life with someone who had an entirely different upbringing and background - I feel like we came with a little more of a blank slate. We got to forge ahead with the path that worked best for our little family. We make our own middle ground!
11 comments:
:) I love this.
Nice post. My M stays home with our son, so we don't meet anyones cultural norms and we also don't care!
Since we have a housekeeper (she provides child care while we are at work, does all of the heavy duty cleaning like tubs and toilets and floors), it is she and I who do almost everything and DH could potentially get very lazy. To avert this, I make sure to keep DH busy. He changes diapers and does dishes after lunch, cleans the pots and big dishes, tidies after himself, gets my daughters ready when we go out on the weekends, and stuff like that. Otherwise it is gonna be hell for me when we move to Amreeka cuz DH will have been really spoiled. He is mashallah really good with our daughters. But he has tried to weasel out of changing poopoo diapers before.
His dad and brother do absolutely nothing in PK and leave their cups on the table after tea and all of that. My MIL does the shopping, too, and manages the house with their various maids and nannies and a cook and driver. So my husband was raised for a different life. But mashallah he has adapted pretty well.
Cheers, sister! I truly hope there's more men out there who help at home!
As long as everyone is happy and contributing equally, then whatever works. In a previous comment, I think I said my husband doesn't do housework? Well, I neglected to mention that I don't pump gas, get the mail, take out the trash, blah, blah, blah... like you said, middle ground. While a lot of our tasks are divided up along what seems like gender lines, I really don't like doing the stuff he does. And he doesn't like doing the stuff I do... so it works out.
You have an excellent style of saying whatever is in your mind. You express yourself brilliantly. Nice post (Y).
Just a Q?
Are you compiling it all to publish it later as a book?
I think the gift of being in an intercultural marriage is that you KNOW you come from different cultures, and will need to massage things to get to the middle. People from the 'same' culture also have different expectations, but might be less likely to discuss them, assuming they both know what's expected, since they are from the 'same' culture.
I celebrate my 22nd wedding anniversary with my Brazilian husband on 7/22. At one point years ago we got the tapes "Men are from Mars and Women Are from Venus." While we were having trouble seeing eye to eye at the time, the one thing we did agree on within the first 5 minutes of listening to the tapes, was that I 'was the man' and he 'was the woman!'
I think the gift of being in an intercultural marriage is that you KNOW you come from different cultures, and will need to massage things to get to the middle. People from the 'same' culture also have different expectations, but might be less likely to discuss them, assuming they both know what's expected, since they are from the 'same' culture.
I celebrate my 22nd wedding anniversary with my Brazilian husband on 7/22. At one point years ago we got the tapes "Men are from Mars and Women Are from Venus." While we were having trouble seeing eye to eye at the time, the one thing we did agree on within the first 5 minutes of listening to the tapes, was that I 'was the man' and he 'was the woman!'
Nope, not compiling it to write a book. I would love to write a book someday about this stuff, but hopefully by then it'd be a little more polished and not just unconnected ramblings off the top of my head!
Great blog! I found it because IFC plays a Bollywood movie each Sunday, and I was somehow awake when they showed “Don”. I had to google just about everything during the movie so that I could understand the cultural relevance of some things. Looking into Paan, I found your blog! You must have a calling to be a great writer, because I found myself reading your other posts, and really got a kick out of them, and also learned a bit on how to handle my own in-laws. Pragmatic and insightful. Please keep it up.
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