Growing up in a very conservative, traditional Christian family, I was quite used to rigid gender roles. My dad worked as a high-level executive, and when it came to tasks around the house, he was responsible for the typical ‘man’ jobs; taking out the garbage, cutting the grass, repairing things (or arranging for repairs), etc. My mom, though she worked outside of the home until I was about 9 years old, went on medical disability and was therefore a ‘stay at home mom’ for the majority of my formative years. She was responsible for everything that went on INSIDE the home: cooking, cleaning, laundry, childcare, grocery shopping…everything except the finances, which were firmly my dad’s domain.

Mr. O, on the other hand, grew up with just his mom and sister, and since there were only three of them, everything was split pretty evenly across the board. They all did laundry, cleaning, shopping, and as soon as they were old enough to use the stove, they took turns making dinners. His mom worked like crazy to support them, so Mr. O and Sister-in-Law Oatmeal really stepped up to help out. It wasn’t a burden or a chore…for them, this is how their family worked best.

Fast forward several years. When my first maternity leave rolled around, I had visions of handling the home with the type of grace and efficiency my mother did. Instead, I crashed and burned. Mr. O would get home from work, and the house would be a mess. Dinner MIGHT be started, but certainly not finished and on the table. Laundry piled up, some of it clean but not folded, other piles folded but not put away. I honestly don’t think I scrubbed my bathtub for about 6 months. I couldn’t keep up with things the way I expected myself to, and it lead to a lot of hurt feelings. I assumed that, since my mom had taken care of all of this, Mr. O expected me to handle it all as well. I began believing that he resented me for not being able to cope, and I created entire arguments and defenses in my head for why certain things hadn’t gotten done that day. Guilt, panic, fear, and inadequacies built up until finally I had a breakdown. Sobbing, I apologized to Mr O over and over again for failing as a wife, mother, woman, because I couldn’t manage to keep the home the way he expected me to. Then he stopped me, and assured me he didn’t expect a housewife when he married me. Any expectations I thought he had were ones that were built up in my head. I was putting pressure on MYSELF to be perfect, assuming that’s the way things needed to be (because it was all I had known).

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My second maternity leave triggered some of these same fears again; now at home with two kids, I thought about how I could become more efficient, more impressive, more ‘super-mom.’ Cleaning schedules dominated my calendar, and I woke up each day with a vague sense of dread surrounding which chores I had to get done that day in order to feel accomplished. Now there was twice as much laundry (plus TWO in cloth diapers…wow), two different schedules to coordinate, and on top of all of this, Mr. O had left his full time job to go back to school. This is where things began to shift for me.

To ease some of the financial strain of both Mr. O and myself being ‘unemployed’ (though I was receiving maternity benefits, and Mr. O was working a few hours a week at a local restaurant), I returned to work one day per week starting in January 2016. And a strange thing happened. I would come home after a full day of work (with a blissful 30-minute commute on either side to clear my mind), and the house was spotless. Dinner was made. The kids were happy, and dressed, and had been on adventures. Everything I had expected for myself and failed at seemed to be second nature for him. When I expressed my guilt over not being able to keep up with these standards the remaining days of the week, people assured me that he was only so good at this because it was ONE day a week, from 8:30 to 3:30. I was grateful, and at the same time relieved that I wasn’t just inept.

At the beginning of June, an opportunity came up for me to return to work full time. I was really hoping to take the full year of maternity leave and not return until September, but if I wanted this new job, it was June or not at all. So I prepared to head back to work, and Mr. O was happy to stay home with the kids Monday through Friday.

Home from my first day of work, the house was spotless, the kids were happy, the laundry was folded and dinner was made. I smiled, knowing that this was that ‘one’ day a week, and tomorrow would be different.

By the end of my first week of work, I began to realize that Mr. O is just much more efficient than I am. During the day, where I might sit on the floor and watch the kids play, or while I was tied up nursing Baby Oats to sleep, Mr. O wasn’t content to sit still. Instead, he made a game of unstacking the dishwasher, or plopped Baby Oats in his high chair with some puffs while he washed the floors. I was so impressed with the sheer amount that Mr. O was getting done in a day, all while still keeping the kids happy and going on all sorts of adventures. Impressed….and feeling incredibly inferior and insecure. The longer I worked, the more I saw how much better at stay-at-home-parenting he was. Thanks to my anxiety and depression, this could have easily spiraled into intense guilt and a serious period of depression. To be honest, I nearly let it. And then I realized something else.

We are capable of different things. Our roles in this time are different. And the traditional gender roles I had grown up with aren’t at play in our marriage. Just because I am female doesn’t mean I need to take on every household task (regardless of whether I am working outside the home or not). Just because I’m a woman, it doesn’t mean I can’t be the breadwinner for our family (for now at least). And just because Mr. O is a man, it doesn’t mean that he can’t be a totally kick-a** stay-at-home parent.

So forgive me for getting caught up in stereotypes. Forgive me for wasting any of my time feeling guilty for not living up to some non-existent standards. And please, don’t make my mistake. You are awesome, whatever role you’re in. You are an amazing parent/spouse/human being regardless of what you manage to get done in a day.