Essay on "Who's the Parent Now?"

The following essay is broken down into two parts, the first analyzing “Who’s the Parent Now?” through the Appraisal Theory of Emotional Support, and the second evaluating the case author’s intent through gender roles and role reversal.

Appraisal Theory of Emotional Support

In "Who's the Parent Now?" Kate is a full time mother with a full time job who has just taken on full time caring responsibilities for her elderly mother. This leads to Kate suddenly changing many of her plans in order to take care of her mom, which she is not ecstatic about. Meanwhile, Kate’s brother Sandy has not taken any initiative to offer her sister any kind of assistance. For the last two months Kate has been entirely responsible for her mom. Having no desire to continue “mothering” her mother, she appraises her situation.

The appraisal theory of emotional support is based on the idea that when something goes wrong, or something unexpected and unwanted occurs in a person's life, he or she's goals are inevitably affected, which leads to an appraisal of these goals, and ultimately an emotional response. 

For Kate, her goals are raising her children, maintaining a high level of work performance, spending time with her husband (possibly), as well as participating in other social outings she enjoys. Because Kate is now faced with the huge responsibility of taking care of her sick mother full time, she must suddenly observe her goals, and appraise how this will affect them. How can she take care of her kids if her mother needs to be taken care of? How will she be able to work if her mother needs to be fed? When will she ever be able to get hammered with her friends?! The unwanted answers to these questions leads Kate to respond emotionally with both anger and guilt, anger because her brother hasn't made any offer to help her with their mother, and guilt because of her lack of desire to help her mom all the time. 

Thus, to help deal with her emotional response, Kate seeks out a therapist, who then assists Kate in reappraising her situation by providing advice through emotional support. The therapist reminds Kate that her mother needs this care no matter what, however encourages Kate to reach out to other resources for assistance, such as hiring a full time caretaker, and splitting the costs with her brother. This decision, which Kate ultimately chooses, reappraises her situation in a way that her mother is still taken care of, while her life goals as a parent, career person, and fun person are all still met.

Gender Role Reversal

I believe this case is intended to explore the communication of gender roles in western civilization. The author of the case, Julia Wood wrote “Communication Theories In Action” (the textbook for C&J 300), a book that examines several theories related to gender, among other critical studies of communication. Through the characters Kate and Sandy, it appears as though Wood is attempting to illustrate the woman’s role of caregiver, a role assumed by both men and women to be a woman’s responsibility. Further, when I read how she wrote Sandy’s character, I realized that his carelessness, and unwillingness to assist his sister with their mother is probably not atypical among men in western cultures. This leads me to believe that Wood ultimately desires a change in the cultural gender norm of care giving. That is she wants more men to take initiative in situations such as Kate’s. In a way she is advocating a role reversal for “caregiver”.

It’s easy to imagine Kate wiping her mother’s (or father’s) ass, but hard to imagine her brother, or most brothers in the west doing so. It’s also easy to imagine the “I can’t believe you would even ask me!” look on Sandy’s face if Kate were to ask him to do such a thing. I don’t think Sandy would even consider it, because it is such an extreme role reversal for him, or any man. Why is it so extreme for men, and not women? Like Wood noted, women have assumed care giving for centuries. Therefore, for Kate wiping down her mother is simply unbearable, but for Sandy it’s unfathomable; there is no way for him to understand the idea, as he, being a man has never pictured himself a “caregiver”.

To be clear, this is by no means an excuse for Sandy. On the contrary, he may not be a “caregiver”, but he is a “man”, and “men” “take care of business when there’s business to be taken care of”. In this case, Sandy’s mom is big business. Therefore he must “man up” and help his sister take care of their mother. Whether he offers his time or money, I’m convinced Kate simply wants Sandy’s help, which both his time and/or money can offer. Further, if Sandy does split the costs with Kate for hiring a caregiver (instead of giving care himself), Kate will get what she wants/deserves (resources for mom), without having to hear her brother pout about his role reversing (offering time -> wiping mom -> woman; offering money -> making money -> man).

Finally, if Sandy does throw a fit, Kate should remind him what her therapist told her, “If love is doing only what we want to do, it’s not very admirable.”