The Fine Art of Taking Care of Each Other
I took dance lessons in sixth grade, seventh and eighth grade. I learned the fox trot, the waltz and the cha, cha, cha. All the boys and girls in my grade sat around in a large circle and I learned how to walk across the dance floor to ask a girl if she would dance with me. I learned how to lead. I learned my role in ballroom room dancing…the masculine role.
What I didn’t learn was to follow. Today, Martha and I love to dance. I lead; she follows. We’re a great partnership. When I dance with other women, I will sometimes get annoyed when the woman with whom I’m dancing starts to lead. I resist following. That’s not the way I learned how men and women are supposed dance on the dance floor.
When I was in dance class, I was learning more than just how to dance, I was learning about gender roles.
I also learned a lot about marriage gender roles from my parents growing up in the 1950s. My Mom and Dad had a traditional marriage. My father was the breadwinner and my mother the homemaker. That model was the prevalent view of what partnership looked like inside of marriage 60 years ago.
That is not the prevailing view of partnership today. Both men and women are working and building careers. Both men and women are involved in parenting, caring for the home and being responsible for the family’s finances. Couples who marry today have greater flexibility in designing the kind of partnership they want to have in their marriage.
Recently, I saw a TED Talk by two men, both ballroom dancers, Trevor Copp and Jeff Fox. In their talk and dance demonstrations, they examine the traditional gender roles in ballroom partner dancing. They question, does the man always have to lead and the woman have to follow? They suggest that the physics of movement doesn’t care about your gender.
In their dancing, they separated the lead and follow functions from traditional gender roles. They created “liquid lead” dancing, in which both men and women (or man and man/woman and woman) could lead and follow and switch roles seamlessly within a dance routine. Their dancing is engaging. I invite you to watch this Ted Talk.
It is my experience that couples, who have a great partnership in their marriage, are co-leaders in their lives. They are co-creators. They are not bound by inflexible gender roles. Analogously, the physics of changing a diaper, washing the dishes, earning a paycheck or washing the car doesn’t care about your gender. The roles and responsibilities we take on inside of marriage are a way of thinking, a way of being or a way of relating to each other.
Copp and Fox demonstrate that their liquid lead dancing allows for continual negotiation around who’s leading and who’s following, much like being in a conversation with your partner around finances or household responsibilities.
In a great conversation, each person’s voice is heard; the person speaking can lead and the person listening can follow their lead. Then they can switch. They give and take.
Copp and Fox make a powerful case that partner dancing has always been about “the fine art of taking care of each other.” That is also what partnership in marriage is all about: Taking care not only of each other, but also of the quality of your relationship.
Posted in Partnership Marriage
