One area where I think kids really benefit from growing up in a single parent home is the blurring of gender roles. In single parent homes there can be no traditional roles, after all, there is only one of us and the same things still have to be done.
When I was married my ex husband and I had the traditional division of labor, I did all of the cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry and most of the child care, basically anything inside the house. He took care of the yard and the garage. The only time that changed was every Father’s Day I would mow the lawn for him. On Mother’s Day he took me out to eat, he certainly wasn’t going to cook.
When I got divorced that all went out the window. I had to learn how to hang pictures, sand walls, change a tire, fix the lawnmower and a million other little things that I had never done before. My ex husband had a lot of pink underwear for a while, until he figured out that hot is not the only setting on the washer.
Hailey benefitted because she saw us both doing everything, when she was home she helped me do yard work, rip up carpet, tear down walls. When she was with her dad she helped him cook, do laundry and take care of her sister. My daughter does not think that anything is man’s or woman’s work, she knows that both sexes are equally capable of doing all things. So do most of her friends. Many of today’s kids grow up in single parent families and they learn from a young age that everything is everyone’s responsibility.
Hailey makes sure her oil gets changed and her tires get rotated, she can also do laundry and fix herself something for dinner. So can the boys we know. I’m glad they’ve learned to do all these things for themselves; it can only help them as they get older.