HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MICHELE!!!

Darn those December babies, anyhow! *wink*

OK, I have a theory. I've been thinking about this for quite some time, rolling it around in my head. This is the only explanation I can come up with for this phenomenon.

I am blessed with a husband who doesn't think it's unmanly to help with our child or the housework. In fact, before he left for his six-month deployment, he made sure the floors were vacuumed and mopped so I wouldn't have to do it right away. He also puts Gracie to bed every night because that is their ritual together since he's gone so much.

But apparently Kurt is an anomaly, even among men our age. I can see why our fathers and our grandfathers wouldn't have done much to help out because they were raised in a household where the father went to work and earned the bread, while the mother stayed home and took care of the house and the children.

My generation was raised by mothers who worked outside the home, as well as the fathers. I knew more children who were latch-key kids than who went home to their mothers after school. I myself had two parents who were both officers in the Navy, and I came home to our live-in housekeeper/babysitter every afternoon. For me, it was normal to see my mom going off to work every morning, in uniform, no less.

Our mothers taught their daughters that we could do anything we wanted. If we wanted to be a doctor, we could. An astronaut, we could. A military officer, we could. Anything a man could do, we could do just as well. I feel that along the way we were also raised to expect our spouses to help out with the children and with the housework, especially if both partners were working outside the home. We were raised to believe marriage was an equal partnership, and that both members would have to shoulder an equal amount of the work.

But somewhere along the line, I think our mothers forgot to teach their sons the same thing. I hear from loads of women my age that their husbands won't help out around the house, that they'd rather play video games than play with the children, that they use their job as an excuse as to why they can't do more to help their wives. But even if the wife has a full-time job, she is expected to raise the kids and do the majority of the housework.

It's no wonder women are angry. What we were taught is at odds with reality.

I also think that men in my generation have sold themselves short. In the media, the families you see feature a strong-willed woman who is exasperated by her husband, portrayed as yet another child for the wife to raise. Where have all the men gone? It used to be that a boy would welcome manhood and do anything in his power to assume that kind of responsibility. Now it seems that men my age want to stay boys. They want to play their video games, they want to accumulate more toys than anyone else, they want to spend their time partying. If the men are single, that's to be expected. But I know a lot of married men who act this way. A lot of women say that their spouse is just another kid.

Where have all the men gone?