Homemaker or Professional Parent(s) #EachforEqual #6Blogsin6Days

 Morning chaos at home. Rajesh is in the kitchen getting breakfast ready and packing lunch in boxes for the family. Seema rushed into the kitchen, grabbed her breakfast and literally stuffed it down her throat in a hurry and rushed out the door. Rajesh called out reminding her to pick up her lunch as she left home for her early meeting. Vinay slowly walked down in his school uniform and sat down at the dining table with a long face. Rajesh brought his and Vinay's breakfast and joined him at the dining table.

"All okay Vinay?", asked Rajesh.

"Hmmm..."

"Eat your breakfast and let's get you to school!"

"I don't want to go to school"

"Why? Something wrong at school?"

"No."

"Then why don't you want to go to school?"

"My friends make fun of me. They ask me why my Mom is never there to drop me at school? And they also laugh when they know that you don't work! Why should you stay at home? Why can't you work like everyone else's Dad and Mom stay at home?"

Rajesh smiled. It was time to teach his son what Equality for all meant.

"Come on, let's walk to school and I will tell you on the way why this works for us." and all the way to the school conversed with Vinay and dropped a happy proud Vinay at the school entrance. Vinay waved his father bye and went into the school ready to share the pride of being different from the majority.

Rajesh had done his share in bringing about a mindset change in at least one person of the next generation to break the gender norms that sometimes become a stress for those who break them as these norms do not fit their life choices.

Fiction or not, the above snippet is a reality in at least a few homes. When textbooks, commercials, and people's thoughts do not catch up with the change that is happening around them (in small pockets but still a start), it leads to a judgment that can be stressful for young children and the people who belong to the family that goes against the age-old norms of the society.

As much as ridiculing those who break norms is rude, strongly going against norms and saying it was wrong also may not be right as we are unaware of why they came into existence. We can only infer from what little we know of those times through stories told by history and people who lived during those times.

Change is the only constant and embracing it would make life more interesting and open up a world of possibilities..Let us be more open to all kinds of people and families. Differences bring more variety to the society, giving children different perspectives that expand their thoughts and make them more accepting of differences and reduces the stress for the entire community of having to conform to irrelevant norms for the current times.

Republished from Momspresso, as they closed down in 2023. I wanted to ensure that the broken links opened to the right article.