Interdisciplinary - FHS 2400

 Matthew Van Dusen

21 June 2011

Chapter 4 –

Parents, Peers &

Gender Roles

My parents had a huge impact on the way I view gender roles. My dad felt that his role was to be the breadwinner and protector. My mom worked but she did not start until the youngest child (me) was in kindergarten. They both worked for the state, but because my dad had worked for them for so much longer he made more money. In another paper I already explained that my mom was offered positions that would have made her a higher tier, but she turned it down because she knew that it would really discourage him. Despite how often my dad applied for promotions he did not get his last one until he had a boss who actually pushed for him to get a promotion. Dad was the one who took out the garbage, did the yard work, had maintenance done on the cars, negotiated prices for products or services. He also did the majority of the cooking because he was too critical of my mom’s cooking when they were newly married. That was fine for the both of them, because he is a really good cook. My dad actually always had the dream of opening a café that served breakfast and lunch. He was good enough that people would have eaten there all the time. Don’t get me wrong; my mother was just as strong as my dad by the time I came along. When I was 12 my mother picked me up and threw me across the room. She gained my full respect that day.

Because of my parents constant “arguing” my interpretation was that if I liked a girl, then arguing was the way to show my affection. There was a girl at church that would constantly make fun of me. I took that to mean that she liked me, so when she said something mean I said something meaner and funnier. Our peers would laugh at what I had to say, so she would hit or kick me. I really didn’t understand why the final action happened and continued to use this approach until I talked to someone who explained that she didn’t like me. Because of my actions, that girl considered me her enemy and actually convinced people not to be my friends. I didn’t even know this until years later when a guy felt so bad that he apologized to me. I was shocked and explained that I had no idea and just figured that we had different personalities and that I had never taken offense.

I, in fact, had no real role model on how to appropriately show affection to the opposite sex that in junior high when a new girl moved in, I befriended her in order to see if I liked her. Once I had decided that I liked her and asked if she wanted to “go out” she said that she wished that I asked her before she had gotten to know me, because she considered me such a good friend that she would never want to lose me as a friend. Later in high school another girl moved in and I tried to become her friend purely because everyone was so mean to her. She took it as me liking her and said that she did not want to go out with me. When I explained that I was only trying to be a friend we became just that until a week later when she asked me to “go out” with her. Needless to say, I just could not figure out how to show affection until after many, many, many trials and errors.

After some time I got that all figured out and found the right woman for me. As a husband, I feel that it is my responsibility to be the provider and had a really hard time dealing with the fact that my wife has always made close to five dollars per hour more than me. It actually took years to be ok with it. This was because of my mother who made sure she didn’t make more than my dad, because it would hurt his pride. Once I was ok with it, I think it made the decision of going back to school and letting my wife be the sole provider much easier. In the end, though, both of our goals is that I am able to provide enough money that my wife can stay home (though it may be a few years so we can pay off all the debt we have accrued from the both of us going to school).

As for the gender roles in the house, we both seem to have the mentality that my wife has a “second job”. I try to help any way I can like doing dishes or the laundry (the washing part, not the putting away part, despite my wife’s wishes). I am the enforcer when it comes to our daughter. She will listen to my wife if she threatens enough, but all I have to do is use my deep father voice and she snaps to attention. We, overall, are not a traditional couple and don’t let traditional ideas of men and women’s roles dictate what we do. I only know how to make 4 dishes (apparently cooking skipped me because one of my 2 brothers is at the same chef level as my dad and the other is a decent cook), and my wife is an amazing cook so unless she asks me to make one of my dishes she does the cooking. Why? Because she is better at it. I do computer tech stuff, because I am better at it. Our lives are so hectic that in day to day stuff whoever is better does it, because we don’t have the time to fiddle around trying to figure it out when there is someone living in the household that could do it with their eyes closed. There is too much to be done for that nonsense!

 Matthew Van Dusen

11 July 2011

Chapter 7 –

Active Listening

     The subject that I chose for this assignment was my wife.  I did so for one very important reason.  This isn’t the first time I’ve actually heard of these techniques, and I have tried it periodically throughout our marriages as I have run across it. I can tell you positively without a doubt that not one of these suggestions work with my wife. In fact, under “Focus on sharing ideas or offering alternatives rather than giving advice” the example of what not to do “You need to put away your dishes immediately after you are done with them” is in fact the way that she would prefer to be given this information. As I read this information to her for the first time and prefaced that I had tried these methods and that they actually made her extremely mad she agreed with me with every point that if I talked to her that way she would hate it. I have been in customer service for 10 years before going back to school full time, and I know for a fact that these methods do in fact work.  Regardless, I can tell you unequivocally without a doubt that if you want to make my wife irate, then you should use these methods on her.

Having said that, what actually attracted my wife to me initially was my listening skills. It is a long story how we got to this point but while I was on a date with Robin’s (my wife) best friend at Applebee’s and Robin was on our date (yes, just her, no date) she was really taken back by the fact that I was not only polite to her but that when my date took over the conversation when she was in the middle of saying something I would comment on what my date said and then turn to her and restate what she had been saying, allowing her to finish her comment. To be fair to the whole part of this story, I was both showing off to Robin and trying to make my date jealous as well as sorry that she brought her friend on our date.

     Once we were married she still wanted me to listen to what she was saying, but the repeating back to her part was not so cute any more.  In fact, it really ticked her off when I would repeat verbatim exactly what she has said to prove that I was right.  I realize that’s not the context of what they mean when they say you need to summarize or paraphrase what someone is saying, but I get the same reaction when doing it the way referenced in the text. 

     My wife disagreed with many of the examples of appropriate ways of communicating about an issue.  She, in fact, found that some of the examples of offensive ways of discussing the issue were less offensive to her.  When I told her about some of the techniques that I have used from the text and reminded her of how she responded, she agreed that that’s not how she would like to be talked to.  She even admitted that she reads more into what I am saying when I try to word things the appropriate way, but if I just tell her straight out what my issue is then she is fine.  She also expressed to me that she is very happy that we communicate the way we do.  

Reflection