A little timely topic to discuss: is there a difference between the responsibilities of men and women during the holidays?
I'd say, "absolutely." Have you noticed that when you get a card from a couple, both signatures and the address are written in the woman's handwriting? Have you met women who, for some inexplicable reason, do all the shopping for their husband/boyfriend's relatives? In my family, wrapping gifts is a woman's job. My entire life, my father has come home from last minute shopping and informed me that I have to wrap a pile of large gifts (and my mother wraps the ones for me). My father has never wrapped a present in his entire life. I've seen men take some of the cooking and baking responsibilities, but have you ever seen them frantically cleaning the house for guests? Single women send out cards, buy gifts, put up decorations, and host guests, but single men just don't do many of these things as they don't have wives or mothers to do it for them (I know single men, but I've never received a Christmas card from one). I've made comments at work around the holidays about not having time to write out my cards or buy a grab gift for the office party. The response from the men in my office: "I wouldn't know, my wife takes care of all that." These wives they're speaking of aren't stay-at-home soccer moms, either, some of them are traders on Wall Street.
Yet, men seem to ENJOY these holiday traditions just as much as women. They like the parties, food, and gifts too. They get credit for sending out cards or buying a host gift because their wives thought of it.
I find all this very strange. I enjoy the holidays, so I thought it would be an interesting to discuss the roles of men and women in the festivities.
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I too am my father's gift wrapper. But I don't believe it's because I'm female. He honestly can't wrap gifts. But his ability to do so is impaired because he is missing half his thumb.
I send a few emails per holiday. If my hypothetical wife wanted to send presents and cards, I'd try to be helpful, but I think the whole thing's ridiculous and wasteful. I'm not Christian so I was spared the whole presents-and-cards ethic.
Quick aside-I always love reading posts like these because they make me think about how things are in my family.
I have to laugh about the gift wrapping because at my house my dad does most of the gift wrapping. My mom does some too, and my brother and I wrap their presents. However, my dad ends up doing the lion's share because he's the best at it. :)
As for the cooking and cleaning-my mom usually does Christmas dinner but my dad and us kids clean up after. And my dad makes the cookies and stuff-as in 6 to 8 dozen cookies. :) My dad's also the guy who puts up the Christmas decorations. And we all share the house cleaning during party time.
I'm sorry if I'm going off topic here, but if this is the season of giving and thankfulness, then I'm thankful that my dad is such an awesome guy and does his share of stuff. And makes great cookies.
Quick aside-I always love reading posts like these because they make me think about how things are in my family.
I have to laugh about the gift wrapping because at my house my dad does most of the gift wrapping. My mom does some too, and my brother and I wrap their presents. However, my dad ends up doing the lion's share because he's the best at it. :)
As for the cooking and cleaning-my mom usually does Christmas dinner but my dad and us kids clean up after. And my dad makes the cookies and stuff-as in 6 to 8 dozen cookies. :) My dad's also the guy who puts up the Christmas decorations. And we all share the house cleaning during party time.
I'm sorry if I'm going off topic here, but if this is the season of giving and thankfulness, then I'm thankful that my dad is such an awesome guy and does his share of stuff. And makes great cookies.
Single women send out cards, buy gifts, put up decorations, and host guests, but single men just don't do many of these things as they don't have wives or mothers to do it for them
I find that problematic, in that it presumes that single men (like me) would otherwise want to send out cards, buy gifts, put up decorations, and host guests, but don't do it because we're too lazy and don't have women in our lives to do it for us. The fact that I don't do those things - mostly because I don't really have the desire or time to do those things and am under no obligation to do them - does not in any way make me a bad person, nor does it mean that I'm waiting for a wife or mother to do them for me. It just means that I don't do them. I might be a curmudgeon, but I'm not a sexist curmudgeon.
Thank you, thank you, thank God for you.
Sheesh. Send cards if you want to, or don't send cards if you don't want to. Don't send them and then be passive aggressive for the rest of the year about having sent them.
Agreed. I find it funny how the author implies that men don't do those things just because they don't have wives or girlfriends. Some men don't do those things simply because they don't want to do them or don't believe in doing those things, period, not because they don't have a girlfriend or wife.
This post also seems to display the popular "the men in my life do this, therefore the majority of men are like these" syndrome.
I personally create a short little story of 200 words or less and hand write all my Christmas cards, which can take a fair amount of time. I however, send them only to people who would appreciate the story and the card, not toss them after Christmas into a card pile. Most of those people who appreciate the cards tend to be very close friends. I wouldn't bother sending a card to a casual friend, an acquantaince or a colleague.
I think that author might understand that single women do these things out of obligation, or because there mother brought them up doing them. I have a strange compulsion to make fancy snacks and throw parties and clean up my house for them. My boyfriend doesn't have the same compulsion. I don't think there is anything wrong about him because of it. I think I have it because my mother cleaned and decorated the house and made nice food for people to come over. Though, the author might be resentful of the fact that women are raised with this ethic and men are not. Perhaps jealous that the men aren't looked down on for not doing it, but those single women might if they weren't so industrious.
It seems to me that the problem is that women feel compelled to do these things - not that men don't. The impression I got from the author, though, is that men should feel obligated do this stuff as well because women feel as if they're obligated to do them, rather than questioning a system that creates "obligations" for people to go to a whole bunch of trouble and a whole bunch of stress in order to make social ends meet. In other words - it's not so much that men aren't sharing in the burden (though if a couple agrees to do these things they should share equally in the work) but the fact that things like this ARE a social burden for many women rather than a free choice, that's the problem to my eyes. If that's what the author is saying, I agree.
I completely agree. It is definitely the obligation that women do it, and not the fact that men do not do it that is the problem.
This.
My mom thinks I'm shirking my duties if I don't send out cards or get gifts or do any of those things--and I'm female--but she doesn't nag my brother to send cards. I think I'll point this out to her next time she gets on my case! :)
This is EXACTLY what I meant by the post. I send cards because I like to more physically check in with people once a year, and a lot of my older relatives, etc don't use email. But I feel that many women send cards because it is the "polite" thing to do, which is fine. But why don't men feel this same obligation, and why, if I get a card from a female friend, does she sign her husband's name? He hasn't thought of sending cards, he hasn't thought of sending ME a card, and he didn't even sign his own name. Why don't women, if they want to send cards or gifts, just say it's from them? It doesn't make sense to me. I do know ONE couple who both sign their cards, which I thought was really cool because no one else does it!
"Have you met women who, for some inexplicable reason, do all the shopping for their husband/boyfriend's relatives?"
I was going to say something very similar upon reading the title of this post, before I actually read the text.
It seems as though men, and I'm speaking very generally here, seem to only buy gifts for the significant other in their lives, whereas women buy them for everyone--kids, parents, significant others, brothers, sisters, kids' teachers, etc. That has been my experience anyway.
I am the one in my family to think of gift ideas because my brother doesn't think about it. My mom helps me, absolutely. And when it comes time to buy a gift for my mom, the responsibility lies with me. My brother doesn't think about it and neither does my dad.
So I think that you make an excellent point--there are gender roles surrounding the holidays. I see it a lot in gift purchasing.
That's true in my family, too. My dad only buys a gift for my mom, but my mom has to buy a gift for him, my sister and I, and all our relatives on both sides of the family. Granted, my mom enjoys shopping and my dad hates it, but I'd never want to get stuck with that much work around the holidays.
She has to? Really?
My partner doesn't send out holiday card, but I do. I don't sign them "Love, us," I only put my name at the bottom. It's a pain getting all those things written out. No one's getting credit but me.
Nice Destra!
Naama - that is EXACTLY what it's like for me! I need to send out 30+ each year, but my mother still puts my brother on her cards. Argh! I get so annoyed at times. And las tyear I didn't because I was so busy with grad school, and I got so much shit from it. And during all this, I for a time was living with a boyfriend, and he totally didn't need to do this and *his* mother put *his* name on the cards.
Back when I was a kid, Mom wrote the cards and we'd all sign them (OK, I didn't until my handwriting was good enough, so she signed for me when I was in 1st grade). :)
I've seen some other families do that to the point of dipping a cat's paw in ink, to have everyone in the family sign the card. ;)
Actually, my dad does wrap gifts. And probably the only reason that card-signing in my mom's responsibility is that she is the one who cares the most. She doesn't see it as responsibility because she wants to, she loves cards. My dad will help clean house for Christmas, but he is usually cooking food which is why my mom and I do most cleaning. Plus my mom again, cares more. My dad will do the dishes after, too, and he always takes the wrapping paper away after I pick it up. There are probably gender-specific tasks, though, I just can't think of any. I'm sure I'll notice it this year.
This year will be different, though. My boyfriend will be at my family Christmas party, and he is officially enough of our family that he gets to help with chores if he is there at a time when chores need to be done. We'll see how it turns out.
My mom only does the decorations (Yes, on top of the house and everything.) and some of the food. My dad and I have always done most of the present wrapping. He does the cards, RSVPs to things, and entertains the cousins. It depends on your household, I guess. My parents met at an ERA demonstration, so I guess I'm a special case.
When I was married (he's no longer in the picture for many reasons, including the fact that he was a sexist @#$-hole) my ex asked when we were sending out Christmas cards. Not particularly having any desire to send them out, I said "whenever you feel like getting the cards, writing them, getting together addresses, and sending them out." I got a look like I had three heads. "Well," he said, "my mom always wrote them, and I work full time so I don't want to, but they still should get sent out." To which I replied, "Then why didn't you marry her?" Needless to say, no Christmas cards were sent that year.
Holiday tasks at my house are negotiated as are most other tasks. My husband could not care less about sending Christmas cards out. Solution? I send them and sign my name only. At first his family was appalled--but they got it eventually. The wrapping of the presents? He does it all. Why? He is really good at it and he cares how the gifts look--me? not so much. I just put his gift in a gift bag--no muss, no fuss. Decorating happens or not depending on how busy we are. People call us odd, but we have been quite happy for over 20 years. It works for us and that's all that matters to me.
I'm female and I hate Christmas cards. I rather stay in touch with a friend during the year than to send out one blaze card. It's just not worth it.
My Dad actually writes a "year in review" about our family for friends and family for the holidays. Mainly, this is because he likes to brag, but hey, whatever floats your boat.