My Dad Wants Me To Be A 1950s Housewife

The first time I brought my boyfriend home was Christmas day. My parents are divorced, while his are not, and so our first Christmas was equally divided between three different houses.

I am of Italian heritage. Both my maternal and paternal grandparents immigrated to Australia after the war, and my parents were born in Melbourne in 1965. They traveled to Italy to spend summers and live through certain parts of their adolescence, but ultimately returned to conduct their lives as second-generation Australians. I grew up with a folklore-style heritage, customs that were upheld and Italian language bestowed upon me. We were also, by default, strong-hearted Ferrari fans and dedicated to Formula 1.

However, I wasn’t allowed to participate in any car-related activity. As much as I enjoyed Formula 1, I was exiled from the couch on Sunday nights as it was “boys only.” And as a child, I was taught to cook and clear the table with the other women, either to prepare for the next course or to wash up. My dad, my uncles, and my grandfathers would stay seated. I didn’t understand why my brother and my cousins could continue to play Mario Kart on the DS instead of helping, like I was.

Nonetheless, at 19, I continued to do it. Until Christmas, when my father and I had a strong argument when I refused to make my boyfriend’s plate for him. As far as I was concerned, he could’ve helped himself to the buffet-style dinner, and he was a big eater. It was easier for him to do it. It made more sense. As far as my father was concerned, refusing to make his plate signified how good of a girlfriend I was, and potential wife, as if “if you don’t make his plate, you don’t care about him!”

My initial response was laughter. My boyfriend yelled at my dad. Surely my father was joking, and this was a big old prank my family wanted to play, with a hidden camera ready to document some grand reaction. However, he continued, and I stood gobsmacked. I kept my mouth shut for the remainder of Christmas, but after New Year’s, my father phoned and decided to remind me of my place in this world as a woman.

“You are here to serve your boyfriend’s needs. And when you get married, he will go to work and you will raise the kids. And that’s your role as a woman. That’s your place in this world as a woman.”

“So, you want me to be a 1950s housewife?” I snorted with sarcasm.

“Yes! That’s the way it is, that’s the way the world works, Corrina. I’m sorry if I’ve burst your bubble, but you need to grow up sooner or later.”

I cried for a week. How could my father say these things? How could he cheer me on, encourage my ambition, and congratulate the studying and endless academic endeavors I’d achieved, partly for his pride and validation? How could he agree with my volition for success and a corporate career, a break-the-glass-ceiling aspirational future I’d landscaped that he’d always seemed to barrack for? It felt like I was being restricted from everything I’d always thought I could do, like an invisible seatbelt had finally been identified, limiting me from graduating into the driver’s seat. I wondered if it was my heritage. My Nonna explained that this is how it is in Italian culture. I didn’t know. At the time, I’d only visited Italy once, and as a total tourist.

We didn’t talk for six months and I reentered therapy before I realized that I’m in control of my future. For the first time, I understood why we fight so hard for gender equality, for pay transparency, for feminism. I realized that the competition between my brother and I for my father’s attention was always an unfair fight, as he never had to work as hard as I did. It’s a race that I’ve unconsciously been running from the day that I was born as the eldest child and as a woman. Was my birth potentially a disappointment in some way too? My gender serving as an undesirable factor when my mother was pregnant?

I will not be able to change my father or his opinions. While he claims to be progressive and hip, I am yet to validate this. At 21, I am finally allowed to sit on the couch and cheer on Ferrari in the Formula 1 with my brother and my dad, and my boyfriend can confidently make his own plate when he comes to dinner. I graduate from university in a month and have already begun climbing the corporate ladder.

But I fear for the day I conform to being a wife and mother. Will I ever be more than that in my father’s eyes? Or will I simply be a 1950s housewife, settled into my place in this world as a woman?