The Saga Of The Work From Home Mom’s Ordeal

I’m a WAHM. Confused? I’m that perennially misunderstood and overworked mom who tries to make a living – a work at home mom. Got it?

We, women, do get tired a lot. More than physically, we get tired emotionally. We get tired because we have to multitask. It is not easy to be a woman, especially a Working at Home Mom (WAHM).

The WAHM

Modern women have evolved to become multitaskers. Our previous generation was only expected to be good at household chores. They were expected to be domestic goddesses; we just need to wear an invisible cape and do everything.

The other day I went to my son’s school for the parent-teacher meeting, where I met another mom. When I asked her ‘what do you do?’ her prompt reply with a tinge of guilt and shame in her voice was ‘I don’t do anything, I am a homemaker.’

This is not something new that we have heard. We are living in an age when a woman feels guilty if she is a homemaker. Women also feel guilty when they go to an office to work. And, women also feel guilty if we are working from home. We are always guilty and never ‘completely’ proud of anything.

We belong nowhere

If we go out and work we are judged as the one who is neglecting her family and kids. If we decide to give up our career, we are made to feel ashamed of only cleaning and cooking, and wasting our education. The worst kind is the WAHM who is the typical example of “dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka na ghat ka”(the washerman’s dog who belongs neither at home nor on the riverbank).

We belong nowhere. The family thinks we neglect them and are always busy on our laptops, and the boss thinks we are always whiling our time away sleeping, wearing a sexy nightdress like Madhuri Dixit in Dil to pagal hai.

WAHM are expected to do the grocery, pick up the kid from school, prepare food, and go to the bank while simultaneously talking over the phone with the client, and typing proposal documents while running the washing machine. We are expected to attend PTA meetings and meet friends for brunch and movie, and also go and make a presentation in front of the client.

How to identify a WAHM?

From the perpetual sign of guilt on her face.

We always fear we are not good mothers because when other mothers do their child’s project we juggle various time zones to attend conference calls. We are not good wives because when other wives accompany their husbands in classy outfits we are busy writing e-mails with hair tied in a messy bun. And if some of us also have hobbies like blogging then we are the doomed.

Why is there nobody in our home or workplace who understands how tough it is to multitask? Why do we perennially suffer from the guilt of not being able to do enough? I honestly feel our next generation of women will remember us as the multitasking yet perpetually guilty generation.

Published here earlier.

Image source: shutterstock

balaka basu

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