I consider myself a feminist if I were to put a label on things. But it’s seems a bit ridiculous that there even has to be a word for it. Of course women are equal. Obviously we can do whatever we put our minds to.

Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, or have had a golden horseshoe tucked up where the sun isn’t shining. But luckily, I’ve not been in a situation, that I can recall, where I have ever felt less because of my gender. I know this is not the case for all women. I’m not speaking for them. I’m speaking for me. And in my own personal life, I’ve always felt like what I want, I go out and work for, without my gender coming into the equation.

I’m raising two daughters and I hope they have the same experience. I’m finding it funny because it wasn’t until we moved to Canada that they started seeing all the hype: ‘Girl Power’, ‘The Future is Female’, ‘Fight Like a Girl’. My seven year old, entering the culture with foreign eyes, started questioning why all the shirts had things like that written on them.

“Well…” I pondered my answer as we stood at the t-shirt table in the Children’s Place, “because girls are strong and can do anything they choose to.”

“I know that. I just didn’t know why all the shirts here say it?”

Smart kid. It really does seem to be a North American thing and I wouldn’t have thought twice about it but her third culture eyes have been pointing out all the differences to me these days.

We kept shopping. At seven I didn’t feel the need to address climbing the corporate ladder. Another talk, for another day.

My girls might wear a pink tutu, but they’re also playing hockey while they wear it and they haven’t thought twice about either.

I’m all for gender equality. Which makes this next part hard to say, but I will own it, and state it without shame.

The domestic duties of our house have a 1950’s gender divide!

It hasn’t always been this way. When my husband and I first met we were both very independent, accustomed to living on our own, doing our own thing. Almost instantly after we got married, we moved abroad. Being expats is the only life we know as a family.

With him off at work, and me at home, it seemed natural that if I was home all day, I wouldn’t wait for him to finish work, get home and then start making dinner. I did that. And if I wasn’t working during the day, I might as well use that time to go get groceries. Cleaning isn’t my strength, I can admit that, so that’s always been outsourced in our house. But generally speaking I have played the roll of traditional housewife for nearly a decade.

“Just so you know, this isn’t how we’re gonna roll in Canada if I’m going back to work.” I told my husband on the regular as we planned our move to the winter wonderland that is our home country.

He agreed that, “of course” I wouldn’t be carrying the weight of house in our ‘new life’ in Canada. If we were both working, we’d obviously share the household responsibilities.

Perfect.

Until it started.

Let’s remember here that we came for a very unique, spoiled, ‘Real-Housewife-esque’ lifestyle where we had full time help in our house for the past three years. In Indonesia we even had a cook(!!!), hence the twenty pounds everyone gained while we were there. So I hadn’t exactly been slaving away over the ironing board while I was off work.

Now here in the real world of Canada, we’re on our own, save for a cleaner who comes once a week. Things started out fine until my husband started asking me to help him with things outside and in the garage.

“Uummm….I don’t really want to do that.”

“Neither do I, but it’s got to be done,” he’d respond.

“No. You don’t get it. I don’t want to clean the outside garbage cans…like, I’m not going to. I’ll gag.”

He laughed in a slightly irritated way and explained to me that he too did not enjoy cleaning out the soupy juice at the bottom of the outdoor garbage, but it stunk and these were jobs that we now had to do on our own.

“Well, how about making muffins for the kids lunches? You want to do that?”

With a smirk he admitted, “No.”

“Perfect,” I told him. “I’ll go make the muffins, you clean out the garbage. I’m out!” And I ran into the house, as fast and as far away from those garbage cans as I could get.

Our continental divide continued.

The eaves-trough needed to be emptied because our street is lined with beautiful trees that clog up the gutters. Did I want to put on work gloves, climb up on a ladder and spend a sunny afternoon cleaning out wet soggy leaves? No thank you.

He would attempt to buy groceries, dropping $400 at the most expensive grocery store in the city, only to have me needing to go to Costco and spend another $500 two days later so we’d have actual food to eat besides large bags of over priced nuts.

We had a gym build in the backyard. But the insulation blown into the attic, that was on us. Kev went and rented the machine, and got up into the attic, but stuffing that machine with insulation for hours…that was my job. I hated every second of it.

We couldn’t continue like this!

Put me in the kitchen where I belong. Pass me an apron, I’m ready to make dinner. Just don’t made me do any more ‘man’s work’ out in the garage!

It’s awful, I know! But I can’t help it! I hate taking out the garbage. I don’t want to mow the lawn.

It’s an ongoing discussion in our house, because I always say, “It’s not my thing”. Like emptying the garbage is anybody’s ‘thing’. It wasn’t that we couldn’t do the jobs, it was just that some things were less painful for each of us to do than others.

So we’ve accepted the gender roles because we’re both generally happier that way. I don’t want to weed-whack the edge of the lawn any more than my husband wants to make breakfast cookies on Sunday mornings. It’s old school. It’s not very feminist. But that’s the way it’s going to be in our house.

I’m sorry in advance to my daughters. Mom isn’t leading by example on this one. I just can’t. Actually; I can. I just don’t want to.

If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen. Not the garage.