Nobody ever wants to admit that there are gender roles in marriage. Actually, I don’t know if that’s true. Let me rephrase that; I don’t want to admit that there are gender roles in my marriage. I like to think that The King and I are equals. That we both pull our own weight. That he does just as much laundry as I do. And that I use a hammer just as much as he does. Or something like that.

Lately I’ve realized that things have changed for us. Drastically. And I don’t have to like it. But I do have to acknowledge it.

Okay. Let me back up a few years.

When The King and I were just about ready to get married we had a counseling session with one of our church leaders. I’ll be honest and tell you that I only remember one thing he said. He said that we shouldn’t have kids until I was ready. He said this was because I would be the one with majority of responsibility of taking care of the kids, so I would have to be ready for that.

I remember talking to The King about that and telling him how silly I thought that was. I mean, it was the year 2000 where women and men were equals in the home. I knew The King would be a hand-on’s Dad. It was one of the reasons I was marrying him.

We took our time to have kids. We decided early on that we had some other things we wanted to do before we added to our little family.

First and foremost, we decided we needed a house. Since we couldn’t afford to buy a house, we decided to build one. And since we couldn’t afford to have someone build it, we built it ourselves.

The King and I were pretty equal in the amount of time we spent working on the new house. He was rarely there without me there with him. While he was running electrical wires, I was painting doors. After he installed windows, I caulked them. He held the insulation in place. I stapled it. We made a good team.

After we got into our house we continued to split the “house chores” right down the middle. He put the clothes in the washers, I folded them. He loaded the dishwasher, I unloaded it. I made the bed, he cleaned the toilets. Even stephen.

We both were working full times jobs, while working on finishing up the house, and also spending a lot of extra time volunteering at our church. We were like a well oiled machine. We got things done and nobody complained that the other one wasn’t pulling their weight.

The last few months I’ve noticed a drastic shift. And it ain’t pretty.

I feel like I’m raising Babboo alone. I know I’m not raising him alone. I’m just telling you how I feel. Bear with me.

I’m the one that gets up with Babboo during the night. I sit with him on the side of our bed and feed him. I’ll look over and see The King with the pillow over his head and try to not get mad. I chose to breastfeed (against his wishes), so I know that there isn’t anything he can do to help. I’m the only one that can feed Babboo. I know that.

But it doesn’t make getting up any easier.

I’m the one that has to wake up earlier every morning in order to have time to get myself ready for work and Babboo ready for school. I dress him, feed him, get his bottles ready and pack whatever else he may need. I also try to make the bed and pick up the toys that took over our apartment the previous evening.

I’m the one that calls the school during the day to check on Babboo. I’m the one that goes there on my lunch to feed him. I’m the one that picks him up and walks home with him. Stopping to run the errands that needs to be done, like going to the bank or the post office. Or even the library. (Okay, I’m not so good about the going to the library part.)

On the two days a week that I work from home, I do my regular full time job as well as take care of Babboo. Which is getting harder and harder to do. But which I choose to keep doing because I know it’s best to be home with him. And because I don’t want to give up my chance to work from home for fear that I won’t get it back.

On my days at home I also have to do laundry, dishes, clean up the place, as well as field the calls from The King in which he adds to my all ready full plate. Yesterday he asked me to go down to Pike Place Market to get some fresh rolls for dinner. And to call the property managers to tell them our kitchen sink was leaking.

I flipped out and told him I couldn’t just run to the market. I was busy working my full time job. My job which I hadn’t been able to do yet because Babboo wouldn’t stop crying and demanding I hold him at all times.

What makes this even harder is that The King is working at the new house every night during the week and every Saturday. He has to work that much or we won’t get into this house. We don’t want to stretch that out since we’ve been paying the mortgage on the house we tore down (for almost 2 years) and we’re paying for the construction on the new house. We are not made of money. Far from it.

But still I feel like it’s just me. Like the brunt of the whole baby thing is mine. Plus all of my previous responsibilities. I feel like I’m the one that picked on.

But guess what? The King has a full time job to. Plus he’s building this house. Not only is he building it, he’s doing all the design work. So when he’s not physically there working on it he’s reading magazine to get ideas for the bathrooms or the kitchen. When he’s not doing that, he talking on the phone with the framers or the metal siding supply company, or fighting with his Dad over what to pay the framers.

So even though I feel like I’m pushed to my limit, The King feels the same way. But on top of him feeling that way, he doesn’t get to see Babboo. He races home each night from the new house in hopes of getting there early enough to give Babboo his bath or to give him a kiss before I put him in bed. He cherishes his time with him in the mornings when he drops him off at school. Every day saying that today is the day he’ll call in sick and just spend the day with Babboo.

What am I saying here? I’m not really sure.

I guess I’m saying that I’m tapped out. And I know The King’s tapped out. And he’s sick of hearing me whine about how rough my life is. Because his is just as rough.

I don’t know how you people do it. I mean, we just have the one kid. The one kid who is actually quite enjoyable and pretty easy to take care of. And when he laughs, he makes me the happiest I’ve ever been. And we’re fortunate enough to be able to be building a new house. And we’re fortunate enough to both have good jobs.

But still, I could use a nap. And maybe some alone time.

And maybe a maid.

originally posted on Aug. 25, 2006 at hola, isabel

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