“You have hands, just like mine, don’t you?”

I was 10 years old and indignant at my first taste of injustice. My grandmother had just called me indoors to help with lunch preparations, interrupting the important game of soccer I was playing with the other boys in the neighbourhood.

I couldn’t stand the thought of cooking and cleaning, or wearing that silly orange apron that taunted me from its hook on the fridge door.

The men in my life, whom I looked up to, would never be seen wearing that monstrosity.

Worse yet, they would never interrupt their important manly work — gardening, car mending, newspaper reading – for the frivolities of cooking.

Gogo surely knew that what she was asking from me was a girl’s job.

Just last week she had insisted that my sister whip out mkhulu’s old, torn overalls and tend to the garden.

My sister, 11 years my senior and more accustomed to Gogo’s strange ways, mowed the lawn, picked the weeds from the vegetable garden and scooped out the waste from the overrun chicken coop.

Though I thought this was a boy’s job, she was clearly a pro, having been accustomed to yard work from much earlier on.

“You know what Gogo always says,” she told me. “In this house, hands are hands, and if you have hands, you work.”

Today’s meal was to be one of Gogo’s Sunday classics, a traditional “7 colours” spread. My task was to prepare the vegetables and set the table. I got to work.

Slicing tomatoes for gravy, dicing potatoes into small cubes (she insisted this was the best way to make mash without lumps) and chopping the stubborn garden-grown butternut into even circular wedges.

She didn’t yet trust me on the stovetop, but I was allowed to watch as she stirred and fussed over each meal. When I did an especially good job, she beamed with pride.

We were singing now, her favourite church hymns.

“Koloi ya Elijah, ha e duma ea tsamaya.”, a modern, automobile-inspired twist on the biblical story of Elijah’s flaming chariots.

I loved singing with her.

Away from the eyes of my peers, I was actually quite enjoying spending time with Gogo. The minutes flew by, and before I knew it the cooking was done and lunch was served.

“Your hands have fed the whole family today. You should be proud.”

Today, almost 20 years later, I still am.

This same pragmatic spirit follows me into adulthood. Today, there is no man’s job or woman’s job, only pride in how I am able to contribute to making the lives of those around me better.

As a soon-to-be-married man, it means making a firm commitment to shouldering the load of domestic labour equally with my fiancé.

Cooking, cleaning, laundry, linen, gardening, groceries, none are exempt.

Like my grandmother’s before me, there is no such thing as a “man’s job” in this house.

In moments when I falter, when the invisible hand of gendered expectation takes hold, I can still hear the voice of Gogo gently guiding me back to the right path.

As an aspiring father, it means critically reflecting on the values I hope to instil in my children.

Do I teach them to find identity in what is expected of them based on their gender, or in the products of their efforts and the content of their person? My hope is the latter.

What my grandmother taught me is the manifold ways one can experience joy and meaning as a man, that my expression of masculinity need not be so narrow.

Gogo taught me the strength that lies within my hands and in the choice I have in how to use them.

What I would give to cook and sing with her again.