SAMANTHA ENSLIN-PAYNE: Mothers maketh the man: so get your son shipshape
Women's Day should also be a day to reflect on how far we still have to go
When I asked my son a few months ago who he thought was going to pick up his clothes, toys and towels strewn across the floor, he looked at me like I was slightly off kilter and said: "You." Wrong answer. And he knew that the second the word left his mouth by the look of horror on my face as it dawned on me that my young child was learning that women were there to tidy up after him. I knew then we needed regime change, fast: amazing what a tick chart and the associated rewards (or consequences) did to get clothes in the laundry basket, towels in the bathroom and toys in their place. It helps that in our home my husband and I both pitch in with no chore assigned to a particular gender and that my sons know plenty of intelligent and determined women and their daughters. But even so it is still a challenge to raise boys to not assume that women should fulfil traditional roles. And that they themselves are not constricted by society into what choices they want to make, especially as the...
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