It IS the thought that counts. Via faeryboots @ Flickr.
This card was actually a step up from years past, which brought me stupid Snoopy and Ziggy cards (yes, fuckin’ Ziggy). Growing up, I always dreaded them, because they were corny and obviously not super special enough for Super Special Me on my Super Special Day. “Oh boy, another card from V!” *yawn*
I was being a little shit. Only in the past few years have I realized, and come to really appreciate, the time and attention my aunt (a super-religious social conservative) has put into a niece with whom she frankly has very little in common.
When we talk about “women’s work” here, we usually talk about women in the professional work place, or, if we’re using those air quotes, about child-rearing or unpaid domestic drudgery. But there’s another dimension; the care work: the thinking ahead, the card- or gift-buying errand, the writing of kind or silly messages (typically signed by the woman, using the names of all the family, right?), keeping up-to-date on addresses, having stamps around, etc. It’s labor, and it’s too often ignored, or discounted–even by me.
I know I’m not saying anything here that hasn’t been said elsewhere, but as I opened that card, after internally rolling my eyes at “okay, V’s card…hmmm, maybe ‘Garfield’ this year?”, I really thought about what it means that my aunt has faithfully noted my birthday with a message of love every April 13 of my 30+ years–what it has meant for her, in terms of labor and planning, compared to what it has meant to me–and I was pretty ashamed of myself.
I talk a lot about feminism–on the web and off–about being conscious about valuing women and their efforts, and still there things I ignore, forget, or dismiss, until something in my life grabs me by the collar and says “look, dummy! Connect the dots!” There’s always another lesson to be learned.
So, thanks, Aunt V. You gave me a great gift yesterday, and I really am grateful.
Thank you for the post! I think this falls under the umbrella of unpaid women’s work, but it’s not exactly child-rearing or daily chores/drudgery. You’re right: women send birthday cards, keep up with addresses, send out thank-yous, arrange children’s birthday parties, and do all the wrapping and packaging of birthday and holiday gifts, nevermind holiday decorating (except for outdoor things like Christmas lights). Sometimes things like tree trimming and garland draping are shared family tradition, but other, less ceremonial things like having cinnamon spice candles at Thanksgiving time, seem to fall in the woman’s lap.
And I’m glad you had a nice birthday.
Awww…I love it!
My grandmother–to whom I have always been close–sent me cards every birthday, Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, etc. She just loved to send cards. I always reciprocated with postcards whenever I travel–she loves getting a picture and 3 sentences with a foreign stamp on it.
The first sign of her senile dementia was when Grandma sent me a Halloween card in January. Then she forgot my birthday. Then my birthday card arrived in September (my b-day is in May). If I get a card from her at all these days, no matter how seasonally mixed-up it is, I get all teary. I know those cards are going to stop soon and it’s very, very SAD.
“But there’s another dimension; the care work: the thinking ahead, the card- or gift-buying errand, the writing of kind or silly messages (typically signed by the woman, using the names of all the family, right?), keeping up-to-date on addresses, having stamps around, etc. It’s labor, and it’s too often ignored, or discounted–even by me.”
I cannot tell you how many times my husband would be informed of a death or a baby being born or someone getting married that we don’t mutually know, and would say to me, “We should get a card.” That was it. What he is really saying is, “you should buy a card, fill it out, put a stamp on it, and mail it.” For people I don’t even know! So now I just look at him and go, “Yes, you should.” Most of the time, nothing comes of it and I’m alright with that. I do the change of address cards and holiday cards. I keep the addresses. I make sure we have stamps. If he can’t remember to buy a card, then that’s his problem. We’re both adults.
And you know, since my grandmother started developing Alzheimer’s and stopped sending me the birthday card, always with five bucks in it, I realized how much I miss them. So sad. I should send her one.
I never ever thought of the fact that the women are always (or almost always) the card-writers. It’s definitely true in my very large family. The one exception is my dad, which might be because he writes the cards with my stepmom and he’s my biological parent, hence he writes the cards? Otherwise, it’s like every man in my very large family is allergic to greeting cards.
Grandparent cards are the BEST. I lost all my grands before I was 6, but my Dude still has three of his, and we regularly get cards and letters from them. And while we giggle and sigh at their descriptions of fish fry dinners and cribbage game scores, we love love LOVE reading them. (And the fivers, too, GiantSquid.)
This is so true. I had serious back surgery about seven years ago, and I still have the hundreds of Get Well cards I received. Each and every one is filled out by the woman of the family. I think one of my male friends from high school sent me a card; that’s it. That community-cultivating, nurturing duty is always the woman’s job.
please, i have to EMAIL for my husband, his communication and social skills are so poor. i can’t tell you how many times a week his family members and friends email me saying, could you tell Mr. Regent to respond to my invitation/pick out a reading for grandma’s funeral/let me know he is alive? i keep up correspondence with his grandmother and send photos to his parents and siblings abroad. i buy presents for my own family members and put his name on them (speaking of which, fuck this year i bought my mother a ring she has been hinting at wanting forever, wrapped it, and gave it to my father to give her for her birthday. jesus christ). i mean, he does a lot, a lot a lot for me too but the social organizing and communication is definitely women’s work in my household. and it can be exhausting, like arranging playdates for a child. i remember when my father wrote me a letter once while i was on a long term silent retreat and i just bawled my eyes out because i realized i had NEVER SEEN HIS HANDWRITING before except like signatures on checks. meanwhile I roll my eyes at my mother’s cards, because they are so frequent. no justice man.
This is one thing that has frustrated me since marrying my otherwise egalitarian husband: I’m the one who feels it reflects poorly on me when WE forget to send a birthday card/gift. I’m horrible with dates and such, and I’ve finally had to accept that I’m never going to be one of those women who always remembers to send a card. And I also realized that pretty much no one in my family judges me when I forget, because they love me. And my husband sure as heck doesn’t care. It was just one of those things that I was letting society make me feel bad about for no reason at all.
On a related note, I used to love to pick these up at my local Kroger: http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=3de05d16-bb03-4eca-98fc-16df72b5c060
Cards like, “To my baby mama on our baby’s birthday.” Awesomeness.
My maternal grandma and I write each other hand-written notes on a regular basis. She’ll buy a pack of ten or whatever, and just send me the whole pack over the course of a year. They’re on a fixed income now; it breaks my heart to find a crumpled up five dollar bill in the card now and then.
It seems like men just have no sense of sentimentality. Like I said, my house is practically a fire hazard because I keep cards for years and years. I have given the boyf a birthday card only to watch him throw it in the trash after reading it (hi pook!).
Also, this has reminded me of how bad I suck as a daughter/sister lately.
Ever since I first left home, my dad has sent me weekly postcards. He sucks at phone and email, and it’s how we keep in touch. He had even saved postcards of all our travels together to send to me and remind me of time we’d spent together. And lately I’ve gotten really crap about sending him postcards back. Also, my parents adopted my sister when I was no longer living at home. She’s autistic and working on her reading, and for a while there I rocked at sending her regular cards. I’ve slacked off that lately to. I need to get back into regular correspondence.
SMC- I am with you on the keeping cards. I have boxes full of cards I’ve been sent. Cards are hugely important to me, all the better if they’re handmade. My husband and I have basically stopped giving each other gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas, because we’d both rather have heartfelt cards and a nice meal together than more stuff.
My Dude is a card- and letter-keeper. (He’s also a packrat, which may be the larger issue.) But he has a shoebox full of letters from his grands, and keeps a lot of cards, and displays his favorites at his office. I keep his cards, and about 1/3 of those I get from others. “Merry Xmas love Jan and Pete” isn’t super special, but those that have news, photos, or personal messages, I do treasure and like to go through occasionally.
If dudes generally don’t value those things, I’ve gotta think it’s because they don’t send them, and thus don’t know what can go into them. Although that becomes chicken-and-egg-ish…
And funnyface, that’s a great story about a young entrepreneuse!
Hmm. I don’t send cards and I don’t keep them. I am, fundamentally, a lazy person, but also, as a single lady, and therefore family-less (ah the joys of invisible womanhood) I don’t feel expected to attend to family in the same way as I feel coupled women are. Interesting.
My mom sends out a weekly letter to me and my siblings that has all the news of her week and I simply cannot throw them away (or any kind of family cards). I finally started organizing them in a 3 ring binder but damn, the binders are filling up fast. Still, I know someday I will be so glad to have the Collected Letters of MamaSharper.
There’s a practice in Orthodox Judaism where one can never throw away a piece of paper with prayers or the name of God (aka G-d) written on them. This leads to spectacular acts of packrattery in that community. I’m pretty much the same with family cards and letters.
Yeah my mister is pretty sentimental as well, probably more so than me. I actually always chalked up his poor communication to dyslexia and general aversion to writing rather than an emotional deficiency as he is generally speaking the more sentimental/romantic/make a fuss over birthdays and anniversaries one. If I ask him, why don’t you just email your sister when she emails you? He says he doesn’t even realize he hasn’t done it, like he reads the email, appreciates it, thinks about her, but doesn’t connect the dot to let her know all these emotions and thoughts.
You raise an interesting point P.Soul — whether married or coupled women have a greater responsibility to tend to family. My first reaction was to bristle and say I took care of my family when I was single and have always been very duty driven as a daughter and sibling (esp bc one of my siblings has some special needs/vulnerabilities) but it’s true that with coupledom I sort of inherited my in laws too and now have two families to care for. What do the rest of you think?
She sends them on paper, not email Becky? Wow, that is some serious organization. Also I am impressed that she has news of herself each week. I don’t think I do enough interesting things to have my own newsletter really. Does she handwrite them?
@JDRegent: Yes, I definitely think that for our parent’s generation at least, the women always inheirited that responsibility when they married. My father hasn’t bought me a birthday or Xmas card or gift since he married my stepmom 25 years ago. Stepmommy does all the work. I don’t mind at all but I often wonder if she does.
And yeah, the Collected Letters of MamaSharper have been propping up the USPS for years now. But they’re computer-generated.
If you have kids someday they are gonna love those letters Becky. I still think the old fashioned postal service is extremely romantic.
JD, as a single lady, I still feel a lot of responsibility towards my grandparents. I’m the oldest grandchild on my mom’s side and I’ve always written and called my grandparents on a regular basis (whilst my brother and most cousins are aloof) and I remember everyone’s birthday, yada yada.
Well, JD, I said it because back in the day when I was all ready to play PilgrimSoul Goes HomeEc, I did feel a lot more pressure to attend to family everywhere. And then, once out of Serious Relationship, it all just dissipated. It can only get worse with children, it seems to me.
Sarah, I mean romantically single.
@SarahMC: Me too. I am the most dutiful of all my grandparent’s grandkids, on both sides. My brothers NEVER did while our grandmas were alive, and my cousins on both sides were considerably less attentive. I think my mother really encouraged me to bond with them, and she set a seriously good example with her own attentive behavior. I think I’m a kind of matriarch-in-training thanks to her.
PSoul do you think the pressure was self induced, or that your family treated your differently and had different expectations?
To clarify, I am in a relationship but I’m not married, so I am not obligated to keep track of all the birthdays and milestones and celebrations in the boyf’s family. But I am still a member of my own family, to whom I do feel obligations.
Well, to be fair it’s true that I come from a somewhat unconventional family background insofar as my mom kind of… didn’t believe in family other than immediate family. But that’s a story for another time, just mention it to say I admit my sample may be biased.
Still, I think it was a bit different, sure. One still, in our generation, usually “becomes an adult” by way of marriage or starting a family. If one does not do either of these things, the responsibilities are viewed differently, I think.
I have never ever sent a card to anyone in my husband’s family for this very reason. It makes me wince occasionally, but it’s HIS RESPONSIBILITY. I did feel pretty terrible when I found out his Mum had sent his Aunt a Christmas card card on our behalf a couple of years ago.
Becky are you the eldest?
It’s interesting PSoul because from my cultural perspective I always felt some responsibility as the youngest daughter, and that’s how I defined my role. But now that I am married I have to say I do feel an extra layer of adultness/expectations to tend to family matters. I am not sure if it is sourced inside or outside me though. I mean part of the reason I had a public marriage (2 years after my secret green card elopement) was so that my family would feel they could rely on me and my husband as adults, accept our care for them and allow us to assume some of the family responsibilities, so I suppose a lot of the increased filial duties are very much a result of norms that I have internalized — except that I have mainly internalized them because I could see that my parents would only stop regarding me as a child and start accepting my contributions as an adult once I went through the ritual of marriage.
when I was little and our family would go on little vacations (camping, overnight at a hotel in Minneapolis) my dad would alwayd find time to sneak away, buy a postcard and mail it to us at home. A few days later it would come in the mail. It always said things about what a great time he was having with us and how glad he was that we could go on a vacation together. Adorable.
It’s very true about marriage being the pathway to Official Adulthood (TM). We joke about getting married just so his family stops seating us at the kids’ table during holiday meals.
Auntie Em, that’s a lovely story.
I am, I think, insanely fortunate, because I’m permanently unmarried to the Dude, but both sets of ‘rents are respectful and non-manipulative. And, Dude does the work for cards/gifts to his fam, I to mine (we sign for ourselves and do little things at Xmas), and that’s that. We used to each send cards for an immediate family member’s birthday, but then we realized we weren’t presenting ourselves as a team (and doing 2x the work). He’s actually closer to his large extended family than I am to mine, so I am extra relieved that he’s willing to maintain those relationships, rather than leaving it to me. ‘Cause I would seriously flame out.
@JD: No, that’s the odd thing. On my mom’s side I’m the 3rd of 4 grandkids and on my dad’s side I’m the 4th of 10.
@SarahMC: They don’t make you have separate bedrooms when you visit, do they? My parents didn’t care if my S.O.s slept in my room (starting when I was in college) but I have friends whose parents actually make them sleep in separate rooms even though they’re in their 30s and LIVING TOGETHER.
@AuntieEm: Your dad sounds awesome!
Our parents live in the same town, Becky, so we each sleep at our own mommy and daddy’s when we’re there.
Auntie Em: I have the feeling that your dad and my dad would get along swimmingly.
I definitely feel that the pressure to send cards and remember birthdays was ratcheted up when I got married, mostly because I felt that I had to make sure both of our families were getting equal attention. I felt that his family would look at me as a Bad Wife if one of them failed to receive a birthday card. But… one year they all forgot to call me on my birthday. And I’ve realized over the years that they are just as shitty at remembering this stuff as I am. So I’m sort of over it. My MIL’s birthday was Sunday. We had given her a present when we last visited, so we could be with her when she opened it, and we didn’t send a card for the actual day. I had a brief moment of panic but then realized that she probably only wanted a phone call from her son anyway. (I do not ever speak to my IL’s on the phone, and mostly keep in touch with them via email. My husband only occasionally talks to my family on the phone.)
@SarahMC: This was the thing I was most annoyed about when we got married. Now when we go home, it’s like a joint custody arrangement: one night at his parents’, one night at mine… I liked the old arrangement better.
I was going to write a comment agreeing with y’all, when my partner called, so I commented to him. His response: “So you’re sitting there, thinking about the ways I push you into oppressive gender roles.” Yes indeed!
I am the oldest daughter and granddaughter in my family (all girls in my immediate family) and I married the older one of two brothers. Now, we live very far from my family and very closeto my husband’s parents. With regard to birthdays etc, I very much feel that I have inherited a separate family for whom I ought to bake cakes, send cards, choose and wrap gifts and so on. My mother-in-law really babied my husband and his brother long after they should have grown out of it, too; right up until we were married, she used to come over to the house and do his laundry. She would even go into the bedroom! The point is, for over twenty years neither of these men really did chores on their own, let alone things like writing cards. It’s just a woman’s job and always had been. And because, for my husband’s side of the family especially, it’s such a woman’s job I feel like it reflects poorly on me when Christmas cards don’t get sent or whatever. I find that this particular mold is extra difficult to break out of because you’re dealing with people, often much older people, you don’t know all that well but whose opinions of you are important.
And before we were married, my parents told then-boyfriend he could spend the night in the spare room. He always stayed in a hotel instead. I was forbidden from joining him there.
I am horrible about doing this. I always, always, always forget to get people birthday presents, send cards, etc.
I should get a boyfriend who does those things for me. Hmmm.
My boyfriend was commenting about how his sister in law never gets presents in the mail on time and I asked “what is your brother doing?” and he didn’t really know how to respond. We’ve been dating a year, and yet I now purchase all his family’s gifts or am heavily involved in the scouting out of gifts…in part because I enjoy buying them, but it’s odd. Definitely one of those default female roles.
Now that I think of it, I think all the cards I receive are done by women except my grand-parents’ maybe. I started to wonder if I am just related to more women by blood but my grand-ma has a brother and nephews who have never sent me cards (one is barely in contact with family at all) while their sisters do send me cards.
I am thinking I will need to start keeping track of birthdays better soon but especially for family younger than me because it’s a nice feeling to know an aunt or older cousin thinks of your birthday every year and I want to give younger people that feeling.
[...] been chosen, addressed, and signed by the women of the family. (I talked about this already here.) And I know that the gifts I’ll get from Mama and Papa Dude (and Gram & Gramps Dude) [...]