I never understood the romanticizations of the 1950s. I love both of my grandmothers, but I do not envy their lives at all. Both of them worked full time and dated/married shitty men. My mom doesn’t know her father and my dad avoids talking about his like the plague.

Mind you my maternal grandmother isn’t even American. She is from rural Jamaica. Even in a country that is more socially conservative than the US, she still didn’t live the old fashion nuclear family life and her situation isn’t that unique at all.

My parents did a much better job at keeping the family together and cooperating with each other than their parents and my mother is a working woman. Both my mom and dad shared the household duties like cooking, cleaning, laundry, taking my brother and I to and from sports and other activities, taking out the trash and they expected both my brother and I to learn how to take care of the house and ourselves. If one parent was better at something than the other (or more available to do it), then that one who was better for the task would do the job. That way no one goes hungry, no one doesn’t have clean clothes, the trash never piles up, the house stayed clean, the plants in the garden aren’t dead, child me and brother don’t get abandoned.

That’s why I think these traditionalists, anti-feminists, and men being so pressed to know how well women can cook clean and do “girly” things are so mind boggling to me because my parents are literally a near perfect team. Seeing trads and relationship gurus talk seriously make me wonder how they were raised. I may not like everything my parents did but seeing what kind of opinions are out here made me realize I am grateful for the way I was raised.