Real Stories - June/July 2017

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When our children were born it was, of course, crucial they realized they would have two, loving parents and just as crucial to both my wife and I, that they knew she was the head-of-the-house. We never kept it a secret from our family our friends that my wife made the decisions. And our daughters never questioned our female-led household. They clearly saw their Mother as the decision-maker and their Father as the housekeeper. I do remember an incident when our daughters were eleven and nine respectively. While I was doing the housework and my wife reading, our oldest daughter asked my wife what wearing the pants meant. My wife told her it usually referred to the wife making the decisions in the household. “Do you make the decisions Mommy?” my daughter asked. “Yes, my wife said, “I make all the decisions in our family; so, some might say I wear the pants.” Neither of our daughters questioned their Mother’s explanation – that was simply the why our household worked. I do not remember our daughters again ever questioning either my wife or I about our relationship. Interestingly, in our upper middle class suburban neighborhood, it was also never an issue, in part because many wives led their household’s even if not as openly as my wife.