How My Parents Put The Lie To Mad Men Analysis

The article I read was “How My Parents Put the Lie to Mad Men” by Robin Hardman. The article was about Hardman’s family life growing up. While she did not say what year, she referred to it as the Mad Men time, so I would say in the 60s. What was unique about her family was that both her parents worked. This was unusual for this time because most mothers stayed at home with the kids while the father was the breadwinner. Her mother went to college and found an interest in early childhood development and went to work at nurseries. As day care started becoming a trend, Hardman’s mother got a job co-administering a chain of day care centers. This was a huge time commitment for her and required her to have long days at work. Meanwhile, Hardman’s father had a full time job as a chemical engineer. Hardman notes that looking
back, her parents did an excellent job sharing masculine and feminine roles. In fact, as she got older her mom increased her work hours while her dad decreased his. As a result, her dad did more traditional female roles such as cooking, watching the kids, and grocery shopping while her mom picked up the more masculine role of being a breadwinner. What caught my attention about this article is that it talked a lot about gender roles. As we learned in class, different times in American history the roles that mothers and fathers have changed according to what was going out within the country. Even though we have not gotten to the 60’s yet in class, I can tell from this article that it was a tradition time when mothers stayed at home and fathers were the breadwinners. I thought it was very admirable of Hardman’s mother to follow her dreams despite what was the norm at the time. Additionally, I thought it was unique that her father stepped up to the plate and did traditionally feminine roles like cooking and grocery shopping. I think this is a great quality because many times we learned in class fathers would refuse to take on those roles just because it was a traditionally females job. Overall, I really enjoyed this article. I thought it offered a fresh perspective of a time when gender roles were the norm. I have a very strong connection to this article, growing up my parents took turns staying home and working.
When I was very little until five, my mom stayed home with my sister and I. After that, she went back to work and my dad started a business where he worked from our home. During that time, my dad was the one who did the traditionally feminine roles such as making us food, driving us to school and activities, and helping us with chores. This has had a huge impact on my life. When I get older, get married, and have kids, I plan on sharing responsibilities equally with my husband, regardless if it is more masculine or feminine. I am proof that there is no detrimental impact if a husband does feminine roles and the mother does more masculine roles. Personally I believe that parents need to work together and that they should not have roles based on their gender. In my Couples Relationship class that I took last year, I learned that couples who share roles and responsibilities often have a happier marriage. As a result, I believe that more couples and parents should start to disregard gender roles and focus more on what works best for their
family.