Mann in das Haus

Last week we started German classes. Switzerland in all of its neutrality can't quite decide on a single national language. Therefore, they have 4 recognized languages, depending on the region in which you live- German, French, Italian and Romansch. I've always thought German was an ugly, guttural language and really didn't have much interest in learning it. Necessity often causes you to do things you never expected to be doing. So it is that I found myself in a beginning intensive German class last Monday. Despite my sarcasm, I am having a lot of fun in class. German has all kinds of crazy sounding words that are a lot of fun to say, and they have a way of adding many words together to make one long word, some of which can be absurdly long. I'm not quite there yet, but I do get to say fun things like "Krankenschwester" (which means "nurse").
Last Friday, after learning to say "I come from...", "I live in..." and "That is my ... (fill in your family relationship here)," ad nauseum, we started a section on occupations. We learned taxi driver, teacher, builder, salesperson, housewife and a handful of others. Today we reviewed the occupations and went around the room with each person stating their occupation. Our class is an international assortment of males and females in their 20s and 30s, from England, Portugal, Brazil, Syria, Thailand, Serbia, Egypt, Gambia, and Italy. Most have come to Switzerland with spouses who are employed here and none of our classmates are currently working except my wife. Ever since my wife received a grant to work in Switzerland, we have joked about how I would be the "House Boy." Much to my delight, I discovered that all of the occupations we have learned so far have a masculine and feminine form, which means that Hausfrau (Housewife) also has a male counterpart, Hausmann. Hausmann, I like the sound of it. Sounds a bit more prestigious than House Boy. As we went around the room stating our occupations it went something like this..."Ich bin Hausfrau," "Hausfrau," "Hausmann," "Hausmann," "Hausfrau," etc. Wow, we must sound like an exciting lot. The next time around we had to pick a different profession, just to mix things up a little. I said "Ich bin Koch" (I am a cook), which still got a lot of laughs since it is not far from the truth.
We had a discussion this weekend with friends about housewives. In Switzerland it is a very common occupation. Coming from the US it is surprising to discover that women did not have the right to vote and run for political office in Switzerland until 1971. Compare that to other countries of the world and they are far behind most other Western countries Times are changing here with respect to women in the workplace but there are some deeply ingrained traditions. One hurdle for women with children is the school schedule. Schools have 2 hour lunch breaks where most children return home for lunch. There are some positive things to be said for this-more family time, giving your children a good lunch, etc- however, it also means that someone must be around when the children return home in the middle of the day. It makes it hard to have a full-time job. My friend is female and her husband spent a year as a Hausmann to care for their young son when they first moved to Switzerland. Hausmann is not a common profession and he had little interaction with the Hausfraus in their small town.
Fortunately, we don't have any children to take care of since I am already feeling like an overworked Hausmann. I'm getting myself edumacated and i'm going to make something of myself. Or at the very least I will be able to speak some broken German, which should get me far in the world.