Men are Like Waffles - Women are Like Spaghetti

When Asher was between the ages of 1 and 2, he had a great fascination with construction trucks (which he called "di di" for diggers). We read all kinds of books from the library about how roads are made and books on the single exciting subject of dump trucks and front loaders. We got Asher diggers to play with at home. I made a point of driving around town to construction sites to see what the diggers were doing (ah, the life of a SAHM). When Harper was born, the Super Target was being built, and there was a great viewing point in a parking lot across the street where Asher could watch while I nursed Harper.

I gained a lot of knowledge about diggers and came to develop a stronger and stronger pet peeve about things that only do one thing. For instance, in building a road, there's a machine that digs, a machine that flattens, a machine that spreads out gravel and oil, a machine that rolls the pavement flat, and a machine for painting. One machine for each task. I have a smiliar pet peeve with kitchen tools and gadgets that only press garlic, only zest citrus fruit, only cut herbs, etc. Certainly, some machines really can do only one thing (although even there, there's probably room for creativity - like the coffee pots and grinders in one), but I believe we live so much with these single minded machines because they have been made by men.

To unpack this . . . I skim read a book a while back titled, "Men are Like Waffles - Women are Like Spaghetti." The premise was that men tend to live as if the parts of their life are sectioned and don't touch - like a waffle. Women, though, tend to live their life with all the parts intertwining, like a plate of spaghetti. This may account for why women are better at multitasking, generally, then men (and why some men don't believe there is such a thing). It also leads me to think that when a man sets out to design something, it will more likely be made for a single purpose. Roads have to be built, so we'll need separate machines to dig, flatten, spread, roll and paint. A kitchen tool is needed, so one will be made with that single purpose.

These days, when I ask Asher to help pick up toys, the process goes much smoother if I a) help him and b) give him a single, waffle boxed item to concentrate on. No doubt, these different skill sets are vitally important to the world, and a reason that I often feel so freaking complicated!