I really enjoy talking with my host mom. We talk every day, we eat three meals a day together, but I really enjoy when we are cooking or doing something together that allows us to have a deep conversation. She is very interesting to talk to because she can explain the Orthodox Christian faith, she has visited America, and she lived in both Soviet and non-Soviet times in Moldova. All of those things and more makes her a very interesting person to talk with.
Our last major discussion was about the role of the sexes in America, Moldova and other countries. On that night she and I made lasagna together for dinner and were just talking after the meal. She was laughing about how her husband is pretty picky when it comes to food and that he likes the way and the kind of food his mother made and that is about it. She then said that he cannot really cook or clean because he was never required too when he was growing up.
My host mom has three sisters and one brother and they were raised so that there was no work that only one sex could do. If something had to be done around the house the no matter if the person was male of female, if he/she was available they did the work. Shen they got married she quickly realized that her husband had not grown up in this type of atmosphere. They celebrated their marriage in her village and then they came to live in her husband’s village. Her sister was in town and getting ready to leave, so my host mom was putting food on the table and asked her husband to help bring food from the kitchen and place it on the table so that they could all eat together quickly before her sister had to leave. When her mother-in-law heard her ask her new husband to help, my host mom was reprimanded by her mother-in-law because that “Is the work for a woman, not for men!”
I told her that America has people that think similarly. But she said, “No, when I was in America men would help with the children, they would carry them around and push them in strollers. Here you do not see that much, because it is the job of a woman.” She pointed out that the Moldovan mentality is changing, because there is TV, Internet and many women have traveled and lived in other countries and realize that life is not this way all over the globe.
Then we then talked about how she was in the hospital with a lady from Azerbaijan and even though it was summer, the lady had no skin showing. The lady said that when walking down the road she could not make eye contact with a man and that when her husband came home the children must have finished eating and been put to bed, she would serve him his dinner on a platter. My host mom’s point was that the way women are treated in Moldova could be worse, but she also recognizes that Moldovan’s mentality when it comes to women is and needs to continue changing and developing.
Our last major discussion was about the role of the sexes in America, Moldova and other countries. On that night she and I made lasagna together for dinner and were just talking after the meal. She was laughing about how her husband is pretty picky when it comes to food and that he likes the way and the kind of food his mother made and that is about it. She then said that he cannot really cook or clean because he was never required too when he was growing up.
My host mom has three sisters and one brother and they were raised so that there was no work that only one sex could do. If something had to be done around the house the no matter if the person was male of female, if he/she was available they did the work. Shen they got married she quickly realized that her husband had not grown up in this type of atmosphere. They celebrated their marriage in her village and then they came to live in her husband’s village. Her sister was in town and getting ready to leave, so my host mom was putting food on the table and asked her husband to help bring food from the kitchen and place it on the table so that they could all eat together quickly before her sister had to leave. When her mother-in-law heard her ask her new husband to help, my host mom was reprimanded by her mother-in-law because that “Is the work for a woman, not for men!”
I told her that America has people that think similarly. But she said, “No, when I was in America men would help with the children, they would carry them around and push them in strollers. Here you do not see that much, because it is the job of a woman.” She pointed out that the Moldovan mentality is changing, because there is TV, Internet and many women have traveled and lived in other countries and realize that life is not this way all over the globe.
Then we then talked about how she was in the hospital with a lady from Azerbaijan and even though it was summer, the lady had no skin showing. The lady said that when walking down the road she could not make eye contact with a man and that when her husband came home the children must have finished eating and been put to bed, she would serve him his dinner on a platter. My host mom’s point was that the way women are treated in Moldova could be worse, but she also recognizes that Moldovan’s mentality when it comes to women is and needs to continue changing and developing.
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