Meredith’s Musings | Sandals and Such

article by Meredith McKinnie

It’s early spring, Friday afternoon. The sun is shining, the lush green landscape is resurfacing, and I have two more hours of freedom thanks to childcare. I never pictured myself being one of those people who enters a store simply to peruse the aisles. I shop on a mission – with a list. I even check off the list as I fill my cart – a dopamine rush. Motherhood has lowered my bar for self-gratification. But this day I had time to kill and so I followed the outline of the store. With a mind always in motion, I assumed the must-grab items were intentionally placed in the back so one couldn’t help but peruse in route to a destination. As I passed the shoes, I remembered my five-year-old needed sandals. While scanning the hordes of options in every size, shape, and strap combination, I remembered I had no idea what size she wore. I phoned Husband.

Never once did I feel shame for not knowing my kid’s shoe size. I purchase much of their clothing in advance and rarely dress them myself. In one of our many talks about what is and is not working in our relationship, I had mentioned to Husband that I felt overwhelmed by the invisible morning labor. The conversation occurred when our five-year-old was only 12 months old. As he left by 6:30 each morning, getting myself and a small child ready felt like a full day’s work in the span of an hour. He asked what I needed. I needed our child and soon enough, the other child, dressed in the morning before he left for work. As he has no hair and no societal expectation of presentation, he can dress himself in all of 5 minutes. He agreed, and it has become our routine. I rarely dress the girls in the morning, and to top it off, he handles bath time as well. We found a system that works for us without either feeling strung out or seething with resentment. And a conversation is all it takes. It almost feels too easy or have we become accustomed to relationships being hard?

Fast forward four years, and in the middle of the Target kid shoe section, I call Husband to ask what size to buy our daughter. After a brief exchange, I select the sandals, toss them in the cart, and start wheeling away. A woman stops her cart at the end of the aisle and just stares at me. “Hello,” I acknowledge her casually. “Was that her dad who knew her shoe size?” she asked. “Yes,” I answered and smiled. “My husband never knew our child’s shoe size.” she responded. Any response would have come across judgmental or boastful, so I simply wheeled my cart away.

I receive such comments often and sometimes from my own family. When I would nod at Husband that a child needed to be changed, someone would inevitably comment on “a man doing diapers,” as if childcare is solely a woman’s responsibility. I can’t sense if the comments are rooted in envy or praise or somewhere in between, but they always rub me the wrong way. It feels like shaming, regardless of the intention behind the comment. Perhaps my taking the comments negatively is a sign of my own internalizing of gender stereotypes. But I try to understand why I feel a certain way rather than explaining it away.

Once at the park, a woman stopped to tell Husband, who was pushing our daughter on the swing, what a good Daddy he was. My feminized Husband, pointed to me pushing our other daughter in the swing, and said I was a good mother as well. I appreciate those moments because I don’t feel alone in them. Husband notices them too, though admits he never did before I started pointing them out. I can’t change people’s gendered expectations but I can challenge them relentlessly. I can carve out an egalitarian approach to parenting and relationships that don’t stifle one gender while putting another on a societal pedestal. And I don’t have to carry the responsibility alone. It helps having a partner to carve alongside me, one shoe or comment or “compliment” at a time.