Work

Work. It has been my observation that this word, simple and unassuming as it may seem, is rather subjective and its meaning relies heavily on user. Usually, it is used in the context of jobs done to earn a living. The prompts for this week too, were in line with this and nudged us to think about the trajectory our careers have taken - first job, most satisfying job, job that felt draining, job you stayed in longer than you should have, and while I do have enough and more to say about that aspect of my life, sometime during the week I had an epiphany which led to a very different theme for this article. Housework - the unpaid work we do that often goes unnoticed, unacknowledged and unappreciated, although one could argue that a lot of work at a paying job could be unacknowledged and unappreciated as well, but, as usual, that’s fodder for another day, another article.

Household chores are seldom thought of as "work" in the traditional meaning of the word. Indeed, it is usually the reason most stay at home mothers or fathers are rarely given the credit due for keeping the house running. In fact, I recently learned that this is being taught to 7th graders as "invisibilisation" of work (an upgrade in education; I don’t remember this being addressed while I was at school at all). Housework is an exhausting job with nearly no breaks or holidays and rarely any gratitude from the people who live under that roof, which is usually only intact because the boss of the house ensures that it hasn’t collapsed on its occupants. 

In the society I have grown up in, and in most other traditional patriarchal societies, the duty of maintaining the home falls on the woman of the house - the wife and mom, and in many a sense, the true heroine of the family. She is rarely lauded for her tireless and constant presence in every single aspect of her family's life - from cooking most meals, to doing the laundry, cleaning the house, playing the perfect hostess, keeping the refrigerator stocked, keeping track of groceries in the pantry, ensuring the family doesn’t overdose on unhealthy junk food, ensuring the meals are ready on time, managing the likes and dislikes of the different members of the family - just reading this list is exhausting. I am certain that a job description like that would attract few applicants - I myself would just as quickly say "thank you, next".

Somehow though I have noticed that we as women forget that we have been trained to do all this work and more, and actually shoulder the responsibility of the wellbeing of the family from a preposterously young age. The responsibilities seem amplified, and include both taking care of and setting a good example for your younger siblings when you are the oldest child in the house, and usually an experience common more to first born daughters than sons. Growing up, this was not something I had an opportunity to experience firsthand, since I do not have a brother. I believed I had grown up in a largely non-discriminating household; my parents shared responsibilities, gave both my sister and me chores to do, and there really didn’t seem like there would be any difference in treatment if one us had been a boy.

The problem arose however, when I moved back in with my family after 8 years of living away (college, work etc.) and I started noticing little things that I had paid attention to before, slowly comprehending that my parents were not the perfect gods that I once thought them to be, but were rather just as flawed human beings trying hard. In the beginning though, I ignored the trying hard aspect. As a strong advocate of equality and feminism, I immediately noticed some patterns that I believed ought to be changed at the earliest, not realising that what I was attempting to do was 

For instance, about 98% of the time, one of the three women in the house made the afternoon tea. My father, the most regular and ardent consumer of the tea, rarely made it, and on the occasion that he was *requested* to do so, either did it extremely begrudgingly or walked out angrily, deciding not to engage in his afternoon ritual. He hardly ever stepped into the kitchen of his own volition, save for making his morning coffee, and that too because my mother had long ago decided that she was going to indulge in the luxury of sleeping in, since both her children no longer needed lunch boxes to be packed for school or college. I also realised that this tendency of my father extended to most household chores, except those that required going out and buying things. Doing the laundry, folding the clean clothes, any cooking, setting the dining table for meals, cleaning up after meals, any cleaning in the house whatsoever - all chores that were traditionally considered the job of the "woman" of the house.

I feel dutybound here to recognize my father's contribution to home and family to dispel any incorrect notions of him. He is, in truth, a fantastic person to have around for career related advice, and an absolute genius when it comes to sorting out your finances. He is a mastermind when it comes to business, goes out of his way to help people when he is able to and makes a mean mix vegetable dish that just does not come right when anyone else attempts the recipe. He is unquestionably the favourite son-in-law to the entire extended family on my mother's side. He is a wonderful person, just flawed due to generational conditioning. This conditioning comes into play with particular vehemence when his lack of involvement in these household chores is mentioned, at which he promptly flies into a rage, and takes resort in the rhetoric "this is how I was brought up".

It is true that this was how he was brought up, and yet it it is also true that it was a flawed upbringing. It is not his fault that society shaped the upbringing of boys and girls differently during his childhood, but he is not entirely blameless, because he has not made an attempt to understand the change in the society and what is expected of people anymore. Then again, has the expectation truly changed?

The roles of mxn and womxn have been blurred in the outside world and in the board rooms, but at home, the tendency is to revert to the practices that have endured for generations. The role of the womxn is in the kitchen, and that of the mxn is the breadwinner. The stereotypes are still proliferated across most sections of the society, with exceptions being far and few in between. A woman is usually still expected to work a full-time job and come home and take care of the family's needs at home, and in most cases, the conditioning is so deep that we don't even think twice before switching roles - it is what is expected. I rarely have come across a working woman who comes home after a long day at work and has the liberty to kick up her feet and relaxing while someone else in the house takes charge of making dinner for the family. The men of the house on the other hand consider this time of relaxation a right, which, if impinged, leads to sour moods more often than not. This contrast can be traced right back to when a child is first tasked with chores in the house. In my experience, a girl is asked to "do" whereas a boy is asked to "help". This continues well into adulthood and marriage. Little wonder then, that in my personal experience, festivals are not the exciting family time they are made out to be, because the day usually involves women  in the family toiling away in the kitchen while the men relax and while away their holiday. Consequently, and somewhat unsurprisingly, my mother is tired all time and the numerous occasions I have heard her say to herself "God, I need a break!" is truly heartbreaking. Despite having two daughters who actually do take on the responsibility and manage a significant chunk of the housework, the stress of keeping track of everything still ends up falling on my mother since her partner never learned to #Sharetheload.

When interacting with people from my parents' generation, it is interesting to see the perspective with which this difference in upbringing was effected. It appears that not teaching children to do clean up after themselves and be self sufficient is equivalent to being a "caring parent" whereas having a child do any chore, even if it is meant as life training is viewed as laziness or apathy on the part of the parent (usually the mother). Not long ago, I had a conversation with a friend's mother, who recounted to me an incident from many years ago. Aunty and her neighbour's sons, both aged around 5 years, would return from school around the same time and while aunty's son, my friend, would promptly put his school bag and shoes away, wash up, change his clothes, and be ready for his snack, his peer, the neighbour's son, would walk in like a little prince and his mum would be waiting to do everything for him. At that time, her friend remarked to aunty that she didn’t care for her son properly because she made him do so much of his own work. Aunty in turn responded that that there would come a time when women would refuse to do these things for men, and so she was training her son to do these things for himself. 

How prophetic of her. 

Today, that boy has grown up to be one among the nicest, most supportive and self-sufficient men I know, where the overall number of such men in my life is shockingly small. Incidentally, the other men who fall into this category were also raised by their mothers to do a lot of the work around the house themselves - be it cooking, sweeping and mopping the house, washing dishes or doing the laundry. 

These men are kind and sensitive, especially to the women in their lives, and this characteristic doesn’t in any way stop them from being "a man" - whatever that is supposed to mean. It just washes out the toxicity in the society's definition of masculinity, which is the best thing a woman can ask for. These men are the examples I have in mind for role models, should I ever be in the position of raising a little boy. One can only hope that by the time our grandchildren are capable of blogging their thoughts, they are not prompted to write about their experiences of discrimination at home when the theme presented is something as unremarkable as "Work".