Gender Roles in a Marriage with Rodney Norris

bad because this latest attack was ridiculous. I actually they should have um Skott Marshall's and on all the planes. Yeah. I actually think that they should stop serving alcohol. Oh yeah for sure. Yeah, that doesn't mean people won't be drunk when they get on the plane though. Anyway, that's not even what we're talking about today, guys. We are talking about gender roles in a marriage. Great topic. M hmmm, because in today's culture, gender roles are shifting in a marriage.

No more husbands have the final word or the wives staying at home with the kids. Now we have stayed at home dad's and wives being the bread winners. So what's your take? On that baby. Would you ever stay at home with the kids? Probably not, I mean unless that was a conversation that we had and there was a role that I had to take on for a particular amount of time. But I don't think I could

do that full time. Yeah, But growing up, we were typically in well quote unquote a traditional household back then in your family, well and most families in my neighborhood anyway, was the father went to work a lot of times, the mother stayed home. My mother stayed home throughing my earlier childhood and then later on in life she went out and had a Korea too. Her and my father worked. Yeah, because my mother never stayed home. My mother never stayed home.

She was always working, and so that's how we were kind of raised. I never even considered being a stay at home mom. I mean, I didn't even like kids that much. So, I I mean, I don't. I'm not a kids I'm not a kid's person. I don't think the women in my family typically are. Jada is not, I am not. Karen was not. Sounder probably was more of a kids person than any of us, but she too worked. So Yeah, I didn't grow up in that environment.

I grew up with both parents participating um financially to support the family, and so that was the standard for us. I had both of those experiences. So early on it was just my dad and my mother stayed home, and then later on in life it was both until my dad got sick and he couldn't work anymore, so then it was just my mother became kind of almost like the sole breadwinner. So yeah, yeah, but even that was because your dad was ill, correct, Yeah, So I don't know.

I mean, I I give kudos to to dads that can do that, that feel comfortable and confident enough about who they are as men to stay home, because I still think that there's like, what is it that I want to say, Yeah, a stigma attached to men that don't work. It's kind of like, uh huh. I think that there's an expectation still generally speaking, in society that men are the bread winners. I don't think that's the

case as much as it used to be. Yeah, women have made a lot of in roads into all types of businesses and job situations and equally as powerful as men in any arena. So they are and they should be, But women still don't get equal pay, So the expectation is still that the husband or the man of the household is going to make more money than the woman. Right, wrong or indifferent because it's definitely wrong. But well, they might make more money, but they are out there working,

is what I'm saying. Typically you're talking about to stay at home mom and if dad goes out and he's the breadwinner. But I think women and in a lot of cases, are making more money than the men, and I think that can be an area of contention for some men. Yeah, but either as it may like, it's not a woman's place to try to figure that out.

For him, that's a conversation, and then he needs to figure out how he's going to navigate that because she's a woman shouldn't be hindered by his insecurity, right, Yeah, I agree with that. We both had our own cars and then we had to kind of merge everything, right,

and you actually had the larger home. Your home was way bigger than mine, but I just thought that mine was nicer and the pool and it was almost like I don't know how many people watched Martin, but the episode when Gina and Martin moved together and they brought all of that stuff and he had They had to toasters too, two stereo systems, two of everything's two irons, and they were trying to trying to battle about who

was better. And that was kind of how it went for us, Like, well, you got a bigger house, but I have a pool and we got It's kind of how it went for us. And we actually even had two of the same cars, so and you kind of one out with the house and the car. I did, but your car was newer. You had the newer Bens and mine was older, but mine was prettier. That's mine was hotter than yours. Yours was just I think at the time, I was just into giving you almost whatever

you wanted. Yeah, I was definitely kind of like it wasn't that big a deal to me, Like it wasn't that important. I just wanted to be with you and anywhere. Any move that we made was not a bad one. It wasn't like it wasn't that big a deal. It wasn't that big a deal. But it was a sacrifice for you. I do remember you feeling some kind of way, particularly when you decided to sell your home. That was huge and that was a huge deal for me. Too, because it was an indication of the level of commitment

that you were willing to give to the relationship. Because you did that before we were actually married. This was all I mean, we knew we were heading in that direction, but you know, at any time something could have gone wrong and it not happened. So I just thought that was a huge commitment that I thoroughly appreciated it. And I don't think it was as easy as you're trying to make it sound right now. I remember you're having

feeling some kind of way about it. That's true. I mean, I mean, at the end of the day, is breaking mortar. But I did like that house, and it wasn't just liking the house, babe. It was to me and correct me if I'm wrong, a symbol of your independence, and by giving that up and having to move into my space,

that was something that I probably would have never done. Well, let me not say never, because you know the trash bag incident, right, but yeah, get bad day when you got actually set up and get the funk out the trash bag as it then taught me to never do that. So the fact that I was going against one of my core beliefs was big because you have been through that before and years many years prior, but still having lived through that would make you hesitant about being putting

yourself in that position once again. I know I told you years ago, but I do appreciate you doing that well, thank you, because I think it's difficult because we have friends that are getting ready to get married and they're in the same position. It's easier for them to be in the woman's home than it is to be in his home, and so he's gonna end up giving up

his space temporarily until they can then merge. And I think the plan is that they'll buy a home together another home together, but in the meanwhile, they're going to be living in her space. And I just think it's a challenge for men. It's kind of go in a pride thing, right, Yeah, I think that's Yeah, you definitely got part of that. But the biggest thing for me

was it never really felt like my home. It took a while for that part to kick in, Like it always just felt like it was your home and I lived there, so it took a minute for me to get beyond that. Yeah. Yeah, trash Bag Diaries, because my my father told me you gotta have your name on the rent book. That's what they used to call it back then, rent book. But just like if your name isn't on the rent book, you can get put out

at any time. So that psychologically was always in the back of my mind, not that I ever thought it would happen, but you know, I didn't have a sense of ownership to it because I hadn't I had no skin in the game. Yeah. I did do some things to the house to try to make a lot of skin in the game now though, Yeah, I mean even early on I when I decided to renovate the master, I put that big ask stub in there, Yo asked,

because I don't even right, Yeah, we were dating. When we were dating, nice to tell her I take baths of every night. I was lying, Yeah, okay, it's always a shower like everybody else. Oh man, would a way somebody anyway. I want to talk about how we handle big decisions, and one of the things that comes to mind was the time I can't even get this out without laughing, at the time you came to me and said you wanted to purchase a skating ring because you

like to skate. Mm hmm. I can't help a laugh eat And you presented as a business venture, it was. It was a business venture because I was out here and we're out here in Los Angeles. We were looking for something to to invest in, a business to invest in, and they were closing the skating rinks in the area. They closed all the skating rinks in the area where we live. Now we have to drive almost fifty minutes, which,

by the way, is not unusual in Los Angeles. You have to drive an hour to get any place, but anyway to get to the skating rink. And so I want to know that convenience for you to get to a rink is not a business venture. No, no, no, no. But because the rinks in the area were closing, I felt like, there's there is a skating rink community in

Los Angeles. There's a skating rink that's going out of business, that has been owned by skating rink owners for many years, and you're gonna come in with no skating rank business background and make it work when they couldn't. Well, no, it wasn't that they couldn't. I just think that they had been in the business for so long they were retiring. That's what I think it was. As it turns out, I think that they also it was just one of those offers that they couldn't refuse because the city actually

bought the building. But at the time I didn't know that, and I just thought that they were retiring because they were old and we could have had the same team that they used to manage the skating ran. I thought it was a great idea, but typically, how do we handle big decisions. We talked about it, we pretty much, and we definitely talked about what was the compromise. The

compromise you didn't get the drink, but you did. We did take the cars out of the garage and you were able to skate in there, and that didn't go so well either. But and this was all during the pandemic, guys, so this was before we started going back out and skating again. So yeah, moving on, How would you say

that we support one another's dreams? I would say when I think about that, I think about it as far as excuse me as our careers are concerned, because I think that our careers have kind of kept you on the East coast and meet on the West coast, and we support one another like you you starting your own company was something that you had always wanted to do, and it came about at a time when it was actually kind of challenging for us because we were just

about to get married and like we didn't know what how that was gonna change our lives, and we almost thought about canceling the wedding because we didn't know about how it was. All of this huge change was gonna affect us financially. And just so everybody knows, we did not have this huge, fabulous, expensive wedding. We did just

the opposite. We had a very modest wedding ceremony and it was really about celebrating very minimally with our friends and family, and it was really more about the marriage than it was about the wedding. Even though y'all know, I love a good wedding, right, I love a wedding. I still love a wedd My girlfriend is getting ready to get married, and I'm so excited moving on. But I think skating venture, I think we we we typically

support each other and whatever we want to do. Yeah, but it's I mean, it's been challenging because it has kept us living on a separate coast a lot of the time. So um, just trying to be there for one another, yeah, you know, and giving people giving you and you giving me the space that we need to like grow, and without feeling any real limits, but just being respectful and conscious and considerate of what your decisions

mean for the other person. Yeah. And that actually brings to mind when you first got Red Table and you not being in that arena before. You were very nervous and not very confident about your ability to do it because Jada and Willow have both been in the field for a very long time and you didn't want to come off looking foolish. Yeah, and I still feel like that a lot of times. But I was telling you then, I mean, this is in line with what we're talking about.

I kept I was always telling you every day that you can do this. The show is great, you're gonna you're gonna kill it, and you've proved me right. Okay,

thank you. But you have been my biggest supporter there and the person that really encourages me and and pushes me to not limit myself when it comes to stuff like that, because I am I'm someone who has historically and still to this day, suffer from low self esteem and just just not a lot of confidence, and you are the one that is behind me pushing me to do whatever and to not limit myself. So for that,

I appreciate you well. Thank you. I appreciate you too, and I hope you feel like I do the same for you when it comes to your business. Although you don't seem to feel like you can't do something, you're always trying to do more So you need to tell

people how I've been most of my life. So what I do is to provide services for people with intellectual impairment or developmental disabilities, and we do that with multiple programs, so it's kind of wrap around supports, residential supported employment, family therapy, medical, just a holistic approach to UM treating people with intellectual impairment. You worked with another company, like for twenty years or more in this as one of the executives in that company, and you started from the

ground up. Yeah. I mean it's funny because I was in another business. I had another business at the time

and it wasn't doing well. So I took a job with a friend of mine and I said I'll do this for six months and helping him out, and then I'll go back to my business, and it's twenty five years later and I'm still doing it, and just now you're doing it for yourself because you were working with another company, and now I was corporate VP for another for a very large company in Maryland for twenty years. I did that and they got bought out and they came in and they got rid of all of the

all of the executives in the company. And and it was just at the time when you and I were talking about getting married, and that was that this is when you know, again referred to we were fearful of whether we were going to be able to even have it or not have a wedding because we had money, but whether we were gonna even go through with it at the time, and I always believed in myself, so it wasn't that big a deal to step out. But at the same time, it was a big deal. It

was a big deal. It was a huge deal for you. But it was also like blessing in disguise because you had been talking and talking about starting your own company and you just never did it because you didn't have comfortable comfortable and you didn't have to so and then I can remember feeling like for a while there. I was I got a little nervous because you know how when people it seemed like you were taking a break, right, you were taking a break and you were just chilling

for a minute. And I was like, Okay, so is he gonna put this company together or is he just gonna chill? Like what is happening? And I didn't really understand the space that you were in at the time. I didn't understand like, you didn't jump right into it, right, you know what I mean, You took your time and relaxed for a little bit. Well, I actually did jump

right into it. It just didn't appear that way because there's a lot of like regulations you have to go through to get licensed through the state of Maryland and all of that. So it just took time. It took about a year for all of that to happen. So in that year I consulted with some other companies, and I guess on your end, it appeared like still doing nothing, But yeah, I was actually working on it the whole time, just behind the scenes. Yeah. Yeah, So when the license

showed up, we were ready to go. Yeah, we hit the ground running and we've been rolling, rolling, yeah, every since I mean, I'm basically doing the same thing I did for this other company. I'm just doing it for myself. And you just have to step out on faith and believe that what you do is what you do and it's going to be good enough for you as well as it was for someone else. Okay, So with all of that being said, I would say that we pretty

much have a traditional marriage. Our roles are traditional, our belief systems are traditional, as far as our expectations for each other, and for this marriage, we're pretty traditional couple. We have a fan question, where is the one place you have always wanted to travel together? I would say, and it's someplace that I've been before, but I would have loved to have gone with you, and I'm willing to go back with you. But I would say any place kind of like the Maldives or Bali or Tahiti.

I would love to to visit one of those islands with you that just seems so really romantic and being able to stay out in one of those like out on the what do you call those little things that they have out on the water where you actually are sleeping and your it's no, not a hammock, it's it's actually your living quarters are out on the water. What do you call those? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, So I would love to experience being in one of

those bungalows that's actually out on the water. It's just very romantic. Yeah, I think the question is where? Where is the one place that we have discussed wanting to travel together? Okay, well, what is your no? I mean that that both of us haves have discussed together. Okay, what is your thought about that? Because I'm not I've talked about that with you coincident ball teas and you don't want to go because it's too far, then you don't want to be on the plane that long. That

has been our discussion. What would you say is the one place? I can't think of a place that we've talked about going and thus and the show everybody together. I think we want to do the Greece trip, right, Yes, I would agree. We are still wanting desperately to go to Greece. I think the first place that we really wanted to go together was Egypt, and we were able

to accomplish that. That was like the best trip I've ever had We've been to to buy So yeah, Greece is very high on our list of places to go. Name one of your favorite restaurants in Baltimore to eat Ida Bees, Ida Bees, Ida Bees. We really enjoyed Ida Bees. I was down in the area and I see that Ida Bees is open for business, so we definitely have to go and get dinner there, babe. Like we love Ida Bees and anybody who hasn't experienced it, let me just tell you the mac and cheese is off the chain,

so check it out. And that's our show for this week of positively gam. You can follow me online at Gammy Norris and you can follow me at I Am Rodney Norris. You can submit your questions to positively Gam at red table talk dot com for an has to hear me answer them on a future episode. Also help us out by leaving a five star review on Apple Podcasts and by hitting the follow button I Heart Radio, Stay grateful, y'all. Positively Gam is produced by Red Table

Talk Podcast and I Heart Radio. Executive producers are Adrian Vanfield, Naris Valin, Jethro and Jada Pinkett Smith. Our audio engineer is Calvin Vale and our associate producer is Irene Bischoff. Burger our theme song is produced by DBATS.