Adele Biller remembers the days when, on that fateful third Thursday in November, her husband Robert used to walk through the door after his annual Turkey Bowl golf outing, sit down, eat and then watch football. That was his entire Thanksgiving Day contribution.
"That's how it used to be," Adele says of her retired husband. "He didn't appreciate how much work was involved."
Adele and Robert met when they were 14 and 16, respectively, and have been married since 1971. And over the years, Thanksgiving wasn't the only time that the full-time registered nurse had to fly solo during the holiday rush.
"She did most of the shopping, but I always used to go with her," Robert says. "A lot of times I used to sit in the parking lot, listen to the radio or go walk around the mall and sit in the food court. I hated holiday shopping — two clerks and two thousand customers."
As she got older, Adele says she became more stressed around the holidays. She got moved to the midnight shift, and after her brother had several strokes, she became his caretaker to keep him out of a nursing home.
"It transformed slowly, and then [Robert] just took on more and more," Adele says.
And now, Robert is THE holiday man. For the past 10 Thanksgivings, he's peeled and mashed the potatoes, ground the giblets for the stuffing, shoved the turkey in the baking bag — the "hardest part" — and cleaned everything up afterward.
"I'm not going to complain, I'm his assistant," Adele says. "It's nice. Lucky lady, huh?"
As Robert and Adele's marriage illustrates, deeply rooted gender roles are particularly pronounced during the holiday season. Women are often stuck in the kitchen, while men sit cozy and watch football. But some men, like Robert, are crossing the divide and proving that traditions can change.
"Thanksgiving is not going to die. We constantly reinvent how we choose to celebrate it," says Maureen Porter, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh who teaches in both the women's studies program and the anthropology department. Her specialty is rituals and cross-cultural gender-equity issues. "Humans have retained and kept these [holidays] as central ways of organizing their whole year."
She says essential positions can be and have been reinvented to be effective for each family so that the holiday is not a "substantial source of sorrow" for one person who is thinking, "'Oh geez, I have to host this whole event.'"
Let's all be thankful for that.
Last year, Washington Post writer Brigid Schulte wrote an opinion piece entitled "For women, it's the most stressful time of the year." She called the holiday season the "third shift" for working women, riffing on the "second shift" — the name that 1980s sociologists gave to the phenomenon of working women who also do all of the household chores.
Granted, some research shows that men are upping their hours on the housekeeping front, but they are still lagging behind women, even as female numbers in the workforce have risen.
Produced by Ashley Murray
When it comes to the holidays, not only do women's magazines put spectacular holiday food spreads on the covers, but a quick Google search yields their advice columns on how women can plan a holiday party on a budget, "take a mistletoe moment," "take a shortcut to joy" and "make friends with Frosty" by building snowmen with the kids.
"Every magazine in the grocery aisle and every holiday special on TV reinforces the possibility of these ideals and reasserts that it is our responsibility to bring these ideas to fruition," says Heather Arnet, CEO of the Women and Girls Foundation, an organization in Pittsburgh that advocates for equal pay for women. "If only we were better bakers, chefs, crafters, decorators, gift wrappers, then our family would really be happy."
Arnet says that because of these messages, women often do a lot of "invisible" stuff before the holiday: making sure beds are made, towels are clean and kids have nice clothes on.
"Men do less of this stuff, because they do not feel that these magazines and images are communicating to them that this is their responsibility."
According to a 2006 American Psychological Association survey of nearly 800 adults, nearly twice as many women as men reported they would shop for food, cook the multi-course meal and clean up on Thanksgiving Day. No surprise, they also reported feeling more stress than their male counterparts during the holiday season.
"I talk to other moms, and we all kind of go through the same things. Maybe we bring it on ourselves. I hate to say that," says Kristin Ioannou, deputy director of Pennsylvania Women Work, an organization that helps women find employment. "I think we all want the perfect holiday. ... My husband's answer would probably be, 'Why do you have to bake and decorate so much?' But for me the holidays meant all of those things."
Pauline Wallin, a psychologist near Harrisburg who counsels women and married couples, says that in her practice she's seen that women tend to be more idealistic about the holidays but that a middle ground is possible: "It's not important who does what, but that they both agree on what should be done."
In their Shadyside home, Lou and Kathy Testoni, who have been married 40 years, developed a compromise after they had kids. Kathy, a flight attendant of 20 years, says she had enough on her plate. "Lou could see that," she says. From then on, Lou — a now-retired managing partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers — began helping more during the holidays, and eventually Thanksgiving and Christmas were his. She still does preparations, but on the actual day, she gets to kick back and watch it all happen.
"Prior to the holiday, Kathy does a lot of work," Lou says. "I do assume responsibility for the menu, the shopping, the coordination of the actual meals on Thanksgiving day." Lou and Kathy's house is full of guests the days before and after the holiday, so breakfast and lunch are also Lou's responsibility.
"I have to say that it was very difficult for me to hand this over, but once I got used to it after a couple years, I look forward to Thanksgiving now. Before, I did not," Kathy says. "We both were raised in families where the women did it."
Lou says he's enjoyed it. For a while he even wrote a blog to help men gain confidence in the kitchen.
The only time he's really been tripped up was five years ago, when his daughter and niece went on a "vegan kick."
"That caused some stress," Lou says. "I made potatoes with milk, potatoes without milk. Have you ever seen a tofurkey?! It's a chemical bomb. I put my foot down and said, 'That's the last time I'm doing that!'"
Another woman who no longer cooks the holiday meals is Carol Rapier, who lives outside of Philly. As a single working mother of two boys, her philosophy is: Boys or girls, teach them the same things.
"I was determined that my kids would learn how to take care of themselves," Rapier says. "Everybody should know that."
Her diligence paid off. Now her son Chris, who's in his 30s, cooks Thanksgiving dinner each year for nearly 30 people, including his mother and girlfriend.
"I make a really outrageous amount of meat. I don't do it every year, but I often make a turkducken. Last year it ended up being 32 pounds," Chris says. "I also usually make lamb, because my mom loves it. The problem that I have is that I end up wanting to make 17 dishes and spending a lot of money and then making a lot of food. This is seriously how I give back to the people who are really important in my life."
Carol even takes home leftovers.
"It's like the reverse thing. Usually the kid goes to the mother's house [for holidays]," says Carol. "For me, he makes the meal, cleans up and makes goodies for me to take home. It's perfect."
Carol says she knows men are capable, but thinks that they're too dependent on women. At 69 years old, she says she's witnessed this.
"A lot of the men my age, it's very sad, they're very dependent," Carol says. "And yet they have nobody to be dependent on, so they're very helpless and they're desperately looking for someone to marry, not for love but to keep their house."
What Carol taught her son is in high demand. Though working women still pick up more of the household duties than men, a Pew Research survey found that sharing household chores ranks very high in how couples describe what makes a marriage work.
"I have to say, with two people working the chores in the house, it reduces the overall stress and it creates a better experience for everybody," Lou Testoni says of the way he and Kathy have split things up.
Meanwhile, Robert and Adele say things got easier as their daughter got older. No more marathon Christmas shopping. They do a lot of online shopping and gift cards now. When asked if her marriage improved after her husband took on holiday responsibilities, Adele said they've always had "a really good marriage."
"We make the best of our lives," Adele says. "I think we're closer through all of this, I appreciate him and he appreciates me. We've always been close though. We've been very fortunate in life."