I know a mexican couple, close friends of mine, whose five years old kid
made a drawing of them at the kindergarden with father wearing skirt and
mother wearing pants, suitcase and tie. He is an unemployed who takes care
of the house duties and she is an executive in a multinational company. It
would be interesting to know other components of this couple's realtionship,
to understand the perception of the kid, but at first instance, the drawing
was shocking for his parents and for almost all who knew about it.
Of course, in the mexican society male and female roles are clearly
differentiated and separated.Things are changing fast among urban, educated,
medium class, and now is not strange at all to find fathers taking care of
children. But among the vast majority of population (I would say no less
than 90%) the role of father, when accepted (this is a single mothers
society), has few more obligations than provide money for food and clothing.
I was educated in the Spanish tradition, and we fully assume our
responsibilities as fathers, but we are far from the new vikings because
culture and education is a heavy load, not easy to change. I admire the
Swedish. We, my wife and me, are triyng to educate our son away from the
traditional machismo attitudes, but it�s not easy when society as a whole
are ruled by traditional values and norms.
Salvador Sanchez
Mexico City
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Hollinshead <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: futurework <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 1999 8:44 AM
Subject: meeting between men
Now here is something positive. I am with the new Vikings and can really
relate to the dissonance between the Swedish and English attitudes. My
first child was born in Scotland and I wasn't even allowed in the hospital
never mind the birthing room. In Canada I coached my wife through the next
two births and cared for the children as much as she - she has a career and
I am a house husband (with a consulting practice).
The Swedes officially recognize that raising children is valuable work done
by both sexes.
It will be interesting to see how the generation of kids raised in this way
turns out. It will probably surprise us.
The response from the Italian lady is interesting too. Evidently Italian
women find these new Vikings very attractive (compared, presumably, to
macho Italian men).
One thing I notice here in Edmonton is that there are quite a few
asian-european couples, and in almost all cases the woman is asian. Are
the asian women doing the same as the Italians - voting their preference
for non macho males (asian males tend to be pretty macho too) ? In such
quiet, little observed ways is social change effected and the definition of
work remodeled :-)
Mike
