The unique advantages of being a same-sex couple on the Frontier
JOE: Yeah, I think being a same-sex couple was a big advantage. We both do work out, too, so we had a physical advantage. And, at home, we don’t have specific roles—whatever needs to be done, whether it’s laundry or cooking, we just both jump in. So we looked at that as a strength: that no matter what was thrown at us at the frontier, we’d be able to both tackle it.
We quickly learned, though, that there’s so much work to do on the frontier that you have to divide and conquer. At one point we had to [decide] the “head of household,” so in that moment, Jason’s modern life is real estate, so he jumped that role. And then there were some things around to do around the house, and I tend to be more handy, so I did some woodwork around the house. And then we had to make a decision at one point where I had to go to the field, and I had to basically sew a crop and work the land, while Jason took the “female gender role” and had to take care of the boys and cook, so he had a fun, eye-opening experience with that.
JASON: Yeah, as two dads, we definitely had our advantages, but I think we also learned that we couldn’t be the team that we normally are in the 21st century. There’s so many chores and responsibilities that had to be done on a daily basis that we could no longer stay together and attack one chore. So it really taught us, as well, that while we do so much together in the 21st century in terms of managing our own our own lives, but sometimes we have to divide in order to be successful and conquer.
QUEERTY: Right, in that episode, Joe you might’ve been doing the more physically demanding labor, but at the end of the day, it was probably Jason who was more exhausted.
JASON: I will say, taking on the female gender role, I learned that the homestead really revolved around women—they were the ones that were really making the homestead work. Because, while the man went out and did the physical labor, the women had to stay home and take care of the children, the garden, the laundry, the dishes and everything else, and then we were still expected to have food on the table when the husband came home from from the field. So, without the women in the backbone of the homestead, homesteading would not have been successful, in my opinion.
