What 2 Weeks of Household Chores Taught me About Women Mental Health?
“Brother, I will be on leave for 2 weeks. My brother is getting married.”
When my house maid said the above two sentences, my legs started shaking and a strange sense of sadness washed me over.
After all, she is one of my lifelines. She works, which is why I am able to work as a single man. But yes, I wished her all the best and started thinking how am I going to juggle chores and work amidst all the dust storms in Delhi-NCR right now?
It’s not that I have been running away from household chores. After my parents passed, my sister raised me and she ensured I never gave a “gender tag” to household chores.
Whether it’s mopping the floor, doing the dishes, cooking, cleaning, watering the plants; You name it and I do all just fine now. She taught me cooking on video calls during the pandemic and now, I love cooking too.
The days I am tired, I order or else I am cooking every single day until our house maid comes back.
It’s been almost 2 weeks I am waking up at 5.30 in the morning and doing all the household tasks plus usual work too. Yesterday, I rubbed all the rugs and the feeling was amazing. I didn’t even have tea for 4 days now. However,
A corner inside me craves for appreciation. No, not because I am a man doing household chores but because:
I am not doing the tasks every single day. Now imagine,
Any woman in your house doing all the work everyday including:
- Mom homemakers working all day long while raising kids Or,
- Working moms with dual responsibility to perform at work and at home too.
No performance appraisals. No pat on the back. No appreciation. No “a good job done.”
I know change is on its way but I want that to fly at maybe 1000 miles an hour because one day, I went broom shopping and everyone stared at me for reasons known to me.
And while I was unpacking the broom, the tagline said:
हर गृहणी की पहली पसंद (The first choice for every woman)
I felt sad because yes, patriarchy is still deep rooted and women are expected to be a star performer in personal and professional areas.
That’s why even brands are unconsciously normalizing that women are supposed to be “at work” all the time.
I am not putting a blame gun on men here who work wholeheartedly to help their mom, sister, daughter, and wife.
But all I can say is, women go through a lot in the household department. Then:
- They feel tired and fatigued all the time
- Their Blood pressure fluctuates
- They feel even more frustrated with biases like “Don’t enter the kitchen during those days”
- They even curse their own self for being a woman
We, as a society, are collectively responsible for “women mental health.”
What are we doing to improve that? Let me start:
When my sister comes home sometimes now, I don’t let her enter the kitchen and we actually fight over it. I know she appreciates me but deep inside, she has also taken the “society bullet” right from her early teenage years.
Are we really taking steps to not label life skills as gender skill?
