by Shelley Robinson
As I walked my son down the garden path of his wedding along the Calgary Bow River, I remember feeling amazed that he had gone from being an adorable blond and blue-eyed boy to being a handsome tuxedoed man about to make a commitment to his beautiful bride for the rest of his lifetime. When he was a child, I knew that the deck was stacked in his favour being a white male in a culture that continues to be influenced by the British monarchy. He would likely have more opportunities than I did as a woman in Canada. Therefore, raising him as a single mother to be thoughtful of the subtle, and at times, overt discrimination that separates Canadians because of their age, race, gender and other orientations, was a focus of my parenting. As his mother and as a woman, I felt tasked with the important responsibility of mentoring him to have the same level of respect that he brings to the world at large and all of its diversity, as he offers a significant relationship with one woman.
When he was little, and would brag about his height, I would say the little mantra that I repeated throughout his childhood, “It is not how smart or strong you are, but how kind you are that is important.” I felt a tingle of nostalgia remembering him asking me who he might marry someday. From that point forward, I raised him with another person in mind. I wanted him to be ready for, and have the insight to choose a compatible life partner (whomever that might be) who would be considerate of his needs, and who he would treat well in return. With his early intention to marry a woman, came a profound maternal calling to me to help him understand women well enough for it to turn into thoughtful actions in his relationships with them.
As I watched him get teary catching the first glimpse of his new wife-to-be, I asked myself, “Did I help raise him to be a good man?” The thing about parenting is that we all do our best with the knowledge and abilities that we have at the time with our children. However, in the end, our children’s lives are truly their own. Beyond my parenting, my son has been influenced by the world around him educationally, culturally, politically, legally, religiously, and otherwise. Fortunately, he and I live in a free country where he has been able to view many different types of people who have been afforded equal rights (for the most part) and share the same opportunities as white, heterosexual men who used to have a monopoly on much of it. As well, how I have acted and been treated, both positively and negatively, in my lifetime as a woman has also likely influenced his perceptions about how to understand and treat women respectfully.
When I was a new bride walking towards my first husband-to-be with all of my naïveté at the time, I really had no idea about the trials and tribulations of marriage that would eventually stretch the fabric of mine to the breaking point. My family never really discussed marriage as a topic that I like to refer to as “the great relationship crapshoot”. What I did learn was that how people are influenced by their families of origin, schools, communities, and workplaces, impacts how they behave together as a couple. What I was taught by my parents, and especially by my strong-minded mother, was to believe that I was an equal in marriage, the work-place, and in society at large, but it was a value-system that met with resistance throughout many contexts in my lifetime. I remember being turned down for positions because I was a single mother. However, through hard work and determination, I forged a strong career path. I remarried later in life to someone who sought out and appreciated my strengths.
Travelling has been an eye-opening experience for both my son and I. On one trip, we browsed through the magazine rack in the airport departure gates. He pointed out that most of the front-page covers had women dressed provocatively; men wearing hunting or sporting gear; and most of the people were young and white. We discussed how people of different ages, races and genders are portrayed in the North American media, reflecting their social agency in the world. Sometimes, when arriving home from various countries (which are too many countries to mention and best to avoid identifying), I still marvel at the stark contrast between how I am treated by people abroad, where misogyny is still alive and well, versus how I am treated at home. It is sometimes a relief returning through the Canadian airport arrival gates to find men and women looking at me in the eye and listening to what I have to say. In some other countries, I have often been ignored, objectified and sometimes confronted for being a woman.
We often take it for granted in Canada that women are now able to drive; vote; be independent without chaperones; be leaders in the workplace, and have a voice on the political stage. Fortunately, in my son’s experiences within Canada, he has grown up to see many people working together in strong, equitable relationships regardless of their differences. However, he has also come up against examples of discrimination which he has had to mitigate carefully. In my education, “Liberal Feminism” loosely means giving voice and efficacy to all marginalized people, regardless of gender. In my lived experience, “Feminism” is often misunderstood to be a bunch of overbearing women wanting rights at all costs even if they exceed those of others. Therefore, in the face of these interpretations, it has been important for me to address this topic with my son.
Fortunately, he has chosen a strong and compassionate woman to marry. She reminds me of the of the vital women in the early 1900’s Canadian suffrage campaign for temperance and improvements in health and education. They led the way for women having the right to vote first in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1916, and as late as 1960 for both men and women of indigenous backgrounds to be able to vote across Canada. Women were first recognized in parliament in 1921. As a result, my millennial son will need to be her champion by developing strong skills to communicate, collaborate, negotiate, compromise and sometimes concede on matters as they arise in their marriage. He will also need to be strong enough to ask for what he needs from her.
I am now the mother of the groom, one of his family matriarchs with a consultative role in their lives to provide occasional advice and support (solicited or unsolicited). However, as my husband has explained to me, it is unlikely that my son at any point in the foreseeable future will ask me how to be a good husband, just like my husband never asked this type of relationship advice of his mother. In our generation, how to have an adult, marital relationship seemed to be a bit of a secretive thing. My friends and I discussed it together because our parents did not always teach us about it using any kind of reliable tried and true marriage curriculum. They led by example, however effective or ineffective this may have been. Therefore, if my son does eventually ask, I would share the following three pieces of marriage advice:
First, everything that he and his partner will experience will be two experiences. One will be how he perceives it through the lens of his upbringing; and the other will be hers with all of what it means to be a woman in today’s society. Both contexts will need to be navigated thoughtfully. He will need to listen to her without assumptions because everything that she says and does will be a new experience to her everyday of their marriage. Just as he will grow and have greater awareness of his life circumstances, so will she. They will both need to set aside time to check in regularly about what they are thinking and feeling so that they can better align their long-term trajectories. In the absence of sharing one brain with a partner, there is only one way to really be in sync. It is to communicate regularly in varied and meaningful ways.
Secondly, nothing in the marriage should be taken at face value. Everything has a context. Once this is fleshed out, the content in any discussion is usually of less consequence. In other words, when we are tired, hungry, worried, hormonal, sick, inebriated, or just out of touch with a topic, we do not have the same capacity for understanding people as we do when we are truly healthy and present with each other. The key, then, is to dig deeply into the who, what, where, when, and how (our context) of the marriage each and every day. We must offer our best selves to each other by working on our mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and social selves by seeking mentorship and serving others. By doing so, we will likely develop better contexts to foster the relationship. In essence, we cannot match the strengths of our partners if we do not keep working rigorously on ourselves and our relationship contexts.
Finally, all of the above advice becomes more difficult when there are distractions such as children, jobs, and other life circumstances. It is critical that his spouse’s needs are at the top of his list of priorities. Many of my friends and family have divorced because they did not put each other first in their marriages. Men in Canada have historically relied on their spouses to take care of the domestic duties of managing the home and the family as we used to be a predominantly single-income family culture. However, my son’s marriage, along with other new marriages of his generation, will likely be very different from those before him. Now we live in an age where the marital labour is best shared by both spouses in ways that suit each of them. This sharing requires that each partner needs to be at the top of each other’s emotional food chain as much as possible to make time to collaborate on these roles.
When their wedding drew to a close, my new daughter-in-law read her wedding vows that were long and comprehensive of her love. His were concise and meaningful. They declared to their little congregation that they would live together as man and wife “until death do they part”. Their union became recognized by God and the country as legally binding.
As the Mother of the Groom, I felt at peace with the knowledge that I had done what I could as his parent to help equip him for this important relationship with a woman so that he knows how to do what it takes to be the best husband possible to her, their children-to-come, and then their children’s children. He will pass on a legacy of respect to them based on how he treats his wife and his family; and how, as a couple, they teach their children about how to have a respectful marriage and family. We all cheered as they were announced as man and wife. I made a silent prayer that I tossed out to them with the confetti as they strode past us with the optimism typical of people embarking on new beginnings: “Be kind to each other, but most of all, make the time to be good for each other.”
Georgia Strait Perspectives 