Gender Equality at Home
Let me today share a small incident from my life .My domestic help
left for the summer vacations to her native village .Generally I make do on my
own when she is away as I am very finicky about how my work is done.
As my bad luck
would have it , one day while cleaning the house , I stretched myself a
little too far while trying to reach a difficult corner and suddenly felt a
sharp pain in my back .I managed to complete the chores somehow but as the day
progressed the pain started to get sharper and my back started getting stiff
.Being a doctor myself , I knew that this could be a slipped vertebral disc and
started taking medicines .Also I should be avoiding any further strain to my
back so it was mandatory that I take absolute bed rest .
In the evening when my husband came back from his office he found
me lying in bed .Then I shared my fear of a possible disc prolapse .He was all
action there from .He ordered me to stay in bed unless for emergency measures
and asked me to leave everything upon his able shoulders .
I was skeptical, to say the least, for he had been raised in a
very orthodox family, where men never ventured into the kitchen or even cleaned
their own underwear .In fact if a man was found so much as washing his
underwear , his wife was immediately assumed to be a sloth or the man assumed
to be hen-pecked!
They ordered take away that
night!
“So much for his able shoulders!” I mumbled to myself.
The next day I was taken up by surprise when I was woken up with
tea in bed by my husband .My young son, all of five years, took a duster and
started dusting the furniture .My daughter started mopping the house.
“Please leave all your clothes in the laundry basket and I shall
wash them tomorrow,” I shouted out to my busy family members.
“Oh that has already been taken care of,” announced my husband
with a small flourish while pointing to the washing machine.
Later he along with my daughter cooked up a full meal and fed me
before leaving for work. Thankfully the school was closed for the children and
thus I did not have to worry about homework and picking up the kids from school.
My back is better now, in fact all thanks to my family, I am quite
fit and fine. I think it was only possible because my husband never really
subscribed to the orthodox views of his family where his mother had to do the
chores even when she was ailing as the men were just not supposed to do them .I
came from a family where such stereotypes were never encouraged and similarly I
made sure that both my kids learn to be independent and do chores as per their
age not as per their sex .So my son dusts and helps me in cooking while my
daughter goes to shop or submits bills or vice versa too.
Gender equality
and sensitization is very important if women have to venture out to study and
have fulfilling careers .Little goes a long way, so start early when the kids
are young and everyone will be thankful later.
I never knew you are such a fantastic blogger also. I agree to you.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you agree with me . Thanks for reading my post .
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