Read on how to enrich your life by purpose, i.e. to find depth and, a reason to get out of bed each morning, your own Ikigai.
So, one of the guys at my office got married about a month ago. He comes to meet up with me and I say hello and congrats and blah blah blah and then ask him, has your wife joined back at work? He says yes.
RM: Wow..that’s nice..hope her timings are not too hectic, na?
He: Nah, similar to mine. She reaches home about 10 minutes later.
RM: Sahi man, you guys must be freaking out after that na!
He: No yaar, we are just at home. She cooks food and I eat and then we go to bed.
RM: So, what do you do to help her?
He: Help? What help?
RM: Well…you know in cooking and all…
He: Why should I help her? She can do it herself na!
RM: What?! Poor girl, she travels more than you, has the same timings as yours and you don’t help her!
He: So what? My mom managed with her job and giving food to my dad, my sisters and me.
RM: What?! (by this time, I am pretty much irritated)
He: This generation of girls do such nakhras and nataks. They can’t manage everything on their own and then they want their husbands to help them.
RM: What nonsense…firstly, stop comparing your wife to your mom. I agree your mom may have done things by herself without your dad’s help, but that doesn’t mean you don’t help your wife. What’s the excuse?
He: Why should I help her? If my mom can do it, she can do it as well without my help.
By this time, I was so furious, that I decided that talking to him was of no point..Since I was at the office, I couldn’t even shout. I just said, ‘Thank God you have a working mom, she will understand your wife so much better.’
He: Yes, my mom doesn’t let her do much around the house. I keep telling ma to let her work, but ma also helps her
RM (Thanking his mom mentally): Your mom has a lot more sense than you!
He: What did you say?
RM: Nothing, let’s not talk on this topic…I don’t agree with your logic.
He: I know, your poor husband, he helps you out so much.
RM: He has to na…I work longer hours than him and travel three times the distance.
He: So what? you take advantage of his goodness
At this point, I didn’t know whether to slap him or whip him. So I said, let’s not talk about me and my husband. He is more than glad to help me and he enjoys the cooking, chopping, cutting, taking care of R and all that…If he had been like you, I think I would have left him long ago.
As soon as I said this, his face changed. I started talking about the weather and all that and then he left, but deep inside, some part of me is hurt. I feel sorry for his wife and I am furious with myself for not being able to convince him to help his wife despite his mom being there…his mom needs help as well na…
He may have been joking (maybe), I don’t know, but it just irked me so much and I feel frustrated!
R’s Mom is a working mother in Mumbai trying to balance work, home and
Aaaargh! I am irked as well. WTH!!
My husband helping me has been a source of amusement, envy,sarcasm, derision… from all around. And horror of horrors I am not even a career woman. So it is beyond anyone’s imagination why he should be helping me! 😉 To tell you the truth, I have never asked him to. More than quarter century back, no opne expected that husbands share housework, so naturally I was surprised myself. The only difference between me and other women was that I did not stop him from helping me by saying it is woman’s work and not his to do. I accepted his sharing of the work. But there have been guests to my house (women) who jump up offering to help me, because I ‘am making my husband work’! Grr…. I want to strangle those women, but am forced to smile sweetly and say, its okay we are fine the way we are.Now too he does things around the house, changing sheets, dusting, setting the table, whatever… except cooking in which he is genuinely not interested. But I love cooking and so I don’t have any complaints. Oh, he is ever ready to make tea for me, but I refuse only because I like tea only when I make it myself! 😉
If someone tells me, “my mom did it, so why can’t you”, I tell them back, “your mom did it, so you should be like her, you can do all the stuf yourself”. Mostly they shut up after that.
Try asking, “I seriously wonder, how does it feel to be a dependent at your age? Don’t you feel like a burden on your mom and wife? Don’t you ever wish to an independent person who can take care of himself?”
The saddest part is, this isn’t even HELPING, it’s doing HIS SHARE of work.
I guess all we can do is as mothers we can ensure that our sons understand that housework belongs to all the family members, not just the mothers and other female members.
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The way I see it – whoever lives in a house has to do housework – gender not being an issue. Only the babies and sick should be exempt. Carry your own weight, people.
Unbelievable! But yeah, I know people like these exist…saddest thing in life….How can one be sooo dependent on someone else at such an age!
God men like this still exist in the society. Thank God for I’ve not met someone like this or else I wouldn’t have been able to control my temper. Typical MCPs
At least his Mom felt like helping his wife. In my case, my husband had never been doing anything. His parents had not even taught him to shop around for vegetables, forget cooking them! When I decided to get my husband to learn the basics, my in-laws would ring up and chastise me. I put my foot down, and told them to stop interfering. And it worked. Today, my husband can do some basic cooking, shops once a week, and also helps around a bit with the cleaning when the maid takes a day off!
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