Easter!

My family and I started our preparations for our Easter celebrations last night. There are several different symbols associated with Easter, three of the most prominent being the Easter Bunny, chocolate, and eggs. As Roman Catholics living in Qatar, we’ve brought over several of our traditions for celebrating Easter. One of these traditions, which is also my favorite, is Easter Egg Coloring.

In my family, we color and decorate the eggs the night before. Then, on Easter Sunday, we celebrate together at breakfast. During breakfast, we have an “egg-breaking competition,” which is basically done to find out who has the strongest egg. We basically go around and try to crack each other’s eggs. The last egg standing is the winner.

After our last sociology class about masculinity, I realized that my father resembled the “hybrid masculinity” during this little competition. My father is the only man in our immediate family. For as long as I can remember, my little sister, Joy, has always come out as the winner during these competitions. This is for one main reason: my dad does everything he possibly can to make sure she wins. He does this by taking everyone else out – he has a special way of holding the egg to make sure it doesn’t crack as easily. He also tends to cheat a bit when he hits other people’s eggs. However, whenever it’s just him and Joy left, he lets her win.

This made me think of the “Kindergarten Commando.” My dad feels a need to beat everyone out because he wants to prove his masculinity and macho-ism by being the strongest. However, at the same time, he also feels the need to take care of my little sister (his youngest daughter) and puts his macho-ism aside at the end to let her win.  Joy doesn’t really take well to losing…I remember the one year I managed to beat the both of them, she was so upset she kicked my winning egg right out of my hand. I had to watch in horror as it flew out of my hand and hit the floor, dead. My dad never did anything to punish her, either…

Through this tradition and competition, my father is able to play the role of both the protector and the caring father.

Happy Easter!