Respect - A Two Way Street

One of the fall outs of this media based gender bias is the power play based on different roles. The narratives on the media create a hyped version of power of one group over the rest based on the content that is being peddled for the purpose. Examples of few such power plays are:

• Parenting - a frenzy around best parenting strategies, what constitutes best parenting, should the child co-sleep or not, should you hold an infant to pacify while upset, to be a stay-at-home-mom or working mom, father the disciplinarian or friend (the same for a mother too), participative parenting vs friendly parenting or any such parenting trend.
• In-laws woes: daughter-in-law or the mother-in-law is the queen of the house, sister-in-law - the influencer of decisions in our home, joint family or nuclear family.
• Boys physically stronger and girls intellectually. Men associated with physical strength (mechanical & civil profiles) and earning potential. Women associated with home based roles & responsibilities and HR & administration related job profiles.

When such biases are projected through the most powerful visual medium, it has a long-lasting impact on shaping one set of people as strong while the other automatically becomes the weaker one.

This leads to toxic expectations of dutiful daughters-in-law and her family to always adjust and submit to the power wielding husband and his family. The society's expectations that the female gender must adjust leads to that gender bearing the various #socialissues metted out against them in silence, like domestic violence, unreported rapes - especially marital rapes. This also leads to early burn out of over stressed and over worked daughters-in-law (professional and homemaker alike) who is trying to meet the high expectations of juggling various responsibilities in her marital home.

On the other side we have the grown men who are caught between wanting to be the supportive spouse for their wives by sharing home responsibilities, but ridiculed for the same by his own family as a Hen-pecked husband. Most ego clashes between married couple are a result of this. How wonderful will it be to see a society where all are deemed equal and there is harmony instead of the struggle to wield power. Harmony doesn't mean lack of power, but it is the existence of power that is equal from all wakes of life. A society filled with self actualized individuals working together towards building a progressive community that appreciates growth and celebrates the differences.

This would, in true sense, be a sign of a matured society in thoughts and action! 

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

Hierarchical or Equal - How do you see the world around?

Recently I attended a gathering and the host suggested that we share our life experiences and how they impacted our family and friends, maybe even our work and community. When it was my turn, I responded "Challenges and choices are what make life. Without either there would be no purpose."

"How do you mean?" said the host.

"Challenges push you to move ahead and overcome it, to succeed and in the process of doing so, you choose which path to follow and what to do overcome the challenge life threw at you!"

"So tell us about who inspires you!"

"I am inspired by everyone around me."

"True, but there must have been one person whom you aspire to be. Isn't it? Someone you think is at a higher place than you which you would like to reach."

That is when I realised that without even a pause I could confidently say that there was no one person like that and I did too. "I really do not aspire to emulate one person. For me, every individual I have met and read about in my life is an inspiration, but they are all peers. Age, race, religion, status, gender or sexual/political inclination was not something that I saw as a hierarchy. For me, these are just attributes associated with a person, not their identities. What differentiates them is their attitude and behaviour and this is something I do try to emulate when I think it is something worth emulating. Even my children can inspire me and I will listen to them if there is a learning in it for me."

I am not sure if I made sense to them or not, and I do not know if this is something that would relate to any of you as well, but I have been this way from the time I can remember. My friends' circle was and still is the most diverse with people from all walks of life, belonging to different age groups and ethnicity. I have always felt that this diversity is what helped shape me into who I am today. This is what inspires me to write as I come across different interesting & inspiring stories from this group of contacts. It has helped me see the world from a different perspective and gives me hope that love and acceptance of what is, can always bring a sea of positive change, that can only benefit the community as a whole.

Some of us enjoy being the privileged lot for reasons that we may not fully comprehend. Let us use this position of privilege to embrace those who aren't so lucky and be the support that we would want if we were to find ourselves in their positions. Drop all the differences and accept everybody as equal - in the true spirit of #EachforEqual, exponentially increasing the happiness quotient in this world!

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

Breaking Gender Stereotypes - Role of Media

We, as a society, tend to excel in passing the blame for bad behaviour or bad influence on someone else rather than look critically at self. Keeping in line with this habit of ours, the easiest soft target seems to be media (any form). We are quick to suggest that media glorifies machoism, heroism, feminism and any other kind of -ims. This is the route cause of chaos in our culture.

Media as well had kept up this image by supporting subtle and sometimes not so subtle, gender stereotyping in the ads, movies and debates. Not so far behind are the product manufacturers and retail business owners who try to cash in on the mindset influence that media has successfully created. We as mad consumers are not so far behind all these.

Let me first list a few examples to make it easier for all of us to be on the same page and understand what I am talking about:

1. The husband and wife jokes where husband bashing or wife bashing was considered fun and applauded. This normalised the aspect of ruthlessly bashing the opposite gender despite the emotional trauma it caused. The justification given used to be, 'Just for fun'. No fun can come at the cost of one or group of individuals' pain!
2. Ads that showed the husband waiting for long hours (not just minutes) before the wife comes down all decked up for function and they leave to the venue only to find it empty, or a wife/mother going crazy at shopping, while the husband waits at the bill counter checking his watch or the child telling that the mother has gone crazy. This is just another form of degrading one gender by saying that they are not time-conscious.
3. Home appliances and grocery ads only feature a lone woman (or a group of women) in the kitchen using the product in focus - a glaring declaration that tells that the kitchen is a woman's fort and no one else is welcome. Not a healthy stereotype. A kitchen is a place where food is prepared, a common need for all genders for survival. By, extension this needs to have the participation of both genders.
4. Kids apparel and toys advertisements showing boys in a blue dress playing in a set up that dominates with blue toys and blue fixtures and girls dressed up in pink, playing with predominantly pink toys, in a pinkish decor indirectly pushed the concept of associating pink to being a girlish colour and blue to being a boy's choice that it is now a norm.
5. Fairness products that started off with saying dark-skinned girls/women needed these products to gain confidence and be successful, thereby insinuating that darkness is a problem and fairness is good. The presence and absence of a pigment - Melanin - is the cause for dark and light skin. Biologically, the melanin pigment is considered to be protective in nature.
6. Subject books in school that define gender roles of family members very clearly indicates that working, driving and buying are Dad's jobs while cooking, caring and cleaning are mother's job. These gender roles are no more reality and need to change.
7. Retail outlets for garments and toys add to this madness by grouping dresses & toys for boys & girls with each one having dominantly the obvious two colours (and related shades) associated with the respective genders. If by chance any parent or child wishes to break the norm, they have to be ready to face the never-ending question (in fact the same content in different forms) of why they chose a colour that is not for their gender!
8. Another irritating fact of retail stores, more specifically for apparels is almost always the dresses, including t-shirts and jeans in the girls/women section are skin tight and a size shorter in length that it will invariably show skin if you are to move your limbs in a free manner thereby saying that a girl/woman needs to be prim and proper if she is to be termed a 'lady'! I thought I was the only one who went to the men's section to buy western wear - t-shirts & jeans, but now my daughter also finds her western wear in the boy's section as it is more comfortable and has colours that she loves.

I can go on and on about how gender stereotyping is so deeply ingrained in our society at various levels and it is going to be a long time before we can break these completely. That said, I am pleased to have come across a few wonderful creators who have slowly but steadily broken these stereotypes. 

We are a long way from making waves in social change with respect to gender norms & stereotypes, but small welcome changes in narratives (in every field) gives hope that we can and will reach there eventually.

As consumers, we can also contribute to pushing this change in the right direction. How you may ask?

1. Stop being a blind mad consumer who believes in the media peddled version of what beauty, confidence and success is all about.
2. Learn and understand what success means to us individually and start defining what our self-image is without being a passive recipient of media's version of an image dependent on our gender or role (another form of stereotyping that has the capability of wrecking havoc in relationships)!
3. Make choices that fit you (not just with retail products even life decisions) and not based on the gender norms. If that means buying pink for a boy/man and blue for a girl/woman, why not?
4. Do not judge when you see someone break the norms & stereotype even if you aren't able to break it yourself. That is your fair share in supporting those working to break these for all of us!

As parents, (a subset of the consumer segment), tell your children to get out of the gender norms by talking to them about conscious personal choice and comfort!

As a community of consumers, when we reject the media-based gender norms and stereotypes and do what is right for us, what is comfortable for us, then there is nothing to stop the change from happening and our children will grow up into sane, practical (logical) adults who are capable of breaking these baseless stereotypes. What do you say co-consumers? Are you ready to do your part in making this world really a place where #EachforEqual is an undeniable reality?

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

Breaking Stereotypes As Parents - Gender Neutral Children

This is an event that happened a few years back when we were living outside India. Children were having their Spring break. My then 8 year old daughter and 4 yer old son, were busy with "pretend play" - their favourite filler game in those days.

This day the inspiration for their pretend play, were their parents (Mommy & Daddy) - us. Here is a snippet from that pretend play:

My daughter pretends to be her Daddy, puts on Daddy's coat, scarf, hat, and bag, ready to step out of the home for office. Seeing this my son wants to pretend play as well. Now that Daddy's role is taken, he decides to be Mommy. So he requests his sister to dress him up (which she dutifully does) with my coat, hat, and a grocery shopping bag.

A weekday conversation is enacted.

Daddy (my daughter): I am ready to leave for office. Bye. See you in the evening.

Mommy (my son): Take care and have a nice day.

Now for the weekend conversation that they are privy to at home.

Mommy (my son dressed up as his mom): I am leaving for shopping. Will be back soon.

A few seconds later, Mommy is back from shopping.

Mommy: Look, how many fruits I have bought! Daddy (My daughter dressed up as her father): Oh... Let me help you carry the heavy bags. (Hands a glass of water) Sit down and rest. I will handle the cooking and take of the kids.

I was grinning from ear to ear bursting with pride. If I need to still spell it out loud, here are the various stereotypes that we broke for them as parents:

• My children without batting an eyelid decided to enact the opposite gender's role in their pretend play. Okay, I can hear many of you say, this nothing great a girl always loves her father while the son's favourite is his mother.
• They enacted snippets where the traditional roles of shopping and cooking were interchangeably assumed by either of us. This breaks the idea that the kitchen is a woman's world while the cool outdoor shopping is a man's job (a stereotyped role that is still seen in some of the school and casual reading books for children).
• Serving water (drinks), hosting, and cooking is as much a man's job as it is a woman's.
• My daughter loves blue and my son loves purple. Black is a favourite for both of them. (might be a very simple thing but the point here is they do not go crazy about any colour being a boy or a girl colour. They understand that all colours can be for anyone and everyone!)

At an age when they can form deep connections to what they see around them, we managed to give them these lessons, which I am happy that we did.

My daughter is a middle schooler now while my son is in primary school. They do not conform to the traditional gender norms of the society. My son can equally enjoy Barbie and go crazy for the Avengers series, play Roblox and paint, sing and learn martial art, cry when upset and comfort when someone else is upset without having to so much as utter a word explaining why or how they are upset, be brave to stop his friends from doing things that don't feel right.

My daughter can gush over an anime teenage romance, get excited about How to train your Dragon Netflix Series, appreciate the confidence of Elsa, Anna & Merida, aspire to be like Mulan, and logically discuss about certain obvious loopholes in the screenplay of the movies that we watch as family including Harry Potter, Disney animation movies, Tamil movies starring Vijay, VJS, Rajini, Jothika, Nayanthara, Suriya & Karthi. She thinks Jothika is cool because of her recent movies like 36 Vayathinile, Jackpot, Raatchasi (her recent favourite - one that she watches almost every fortnight on Amazon Prime or is it Netflix - I forget) My son loves cooking and keeps asking to help when he can. Recently, I am almost always surprised by the level headed logical approach that my daughter takes to make decisions pertaining to her higher studies and extra-curricular activities. They are uncomfortable when they hear gender-specific statements (that are so normal in our society). Some examples of what kind of statements that make them uncomfortable are:

• Stitching is a girl activity. Fixing things are for boys. (My daughter says stitching is also a form of fixing, so shouldn't everyone learn it?)
• Cry like a girl - My son says that people cry when they are upset. Why only girls can cry and not boys. I also get hurt when my friends call me names and do not stop even after I tell them that it hurts.

I know they will grow up to be fine level headed adults who can impact this society positively by their way of life and the value systems they are now building for themselves!

I think it is time for gender-biased (specific) roles to be replaced by gender-neutral roles and policies everywhere. This will restore the respect each one deserves instead of the shame that seems to associated with certain natural behaviours, emotions and roles.

Would you agree with me or do you have a different take on this? Would love to hear your opinions on the blog or the existing gender bias or probable solutions to implement to achieve gender neutrality from home!

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

The incident describe in the initial part of this article is from another post of mine here - Proud Mommy Moment

Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 2 of 2)

If you would like to read the part 1 the Lockdown Chaos: Coping Mechanisms for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2), follow the link. 

“No health without mental health” – Surgeon General David Satcher

Here are a few coping mechanisms I practice for my personal mental wellbeing (most involve a mindset shift from what we have been conditioned, a reframing of sorts)

1. Learn to Pause: We are conditioned to believe that we must always be engaged and contributing something. Doing nothing, is not equivalent to wasting precious time. Sometimes we need that pause of doing nothing to rejuvenate ourselves and our overworked mental and physical system. Even a supercomputer needs to be shutdown to keep it working well for long.
   
   
2. Read Different Genres: I enjoy reading (anything). I love to explore different genres and different authors. I may not read to the extent of quoting the author with the phrase or passage, but now we have the luxury or searching for the same before we share it on the digital platforms. I love to read to explore unexplored territories to widen my thoughts and diversify my thinking pattern.
   
   
3. Create Something From Scratch: I love counted cross stitch and writing. My go-to comforter is one of these two and I am always pulled into it so deeply that the needed distance from whatever is bothering my mental wellbeing is automatically created. This enables me to clearly look into it from afar and then find a way to tackle it to bring back my mental peace. The last year+ saw the conceptualisation of a memoire book on my father-in-law. What started as a digitisation effort of his written work from more than 3-4 decades ago, as it progressed the book had snippets from significant people about him and his positive influence in their lives. The process of conceptualising and shaping such a creation kept me grounded during the pandemic times stuck indoors. The coordination of getting input from people living in different parts of the state and compiling it to a complete book was cathartic. Seeing the book published and released on 31st August 2021 (on his 75th Birth anniversary) in his memory gave a sense of accomplishment.
   
   
   
   
   The whole effort also seemed like a cathartic closure for the family dealing with the grief of his passing (a decade ago). In 2019, I did a similar effort of compiling the devotional songs of my paternal grandmother in a book format to be given as memorabilia for the family on her first death anniversary.

   
   
4. A Good Sleep: Earlier I used to think that sleeping without solving a fight or a problem is not good for the relationship or self. Now I have come to realise that ‘sleep over a problem’ was told by someone who knew what they meant. When you sleep your body and mind are well rested. Sometimes your dreams could be a way of finding innovative, interesting, and simple solutions to the problem that you had before you slept. There have been extensive studies on this. Here are a couple of articles that has scientific data to support this need.
• Do Women Need More Sleep Than Men?
• FACT or FICTION: Do women need more sleep than men?
  
  
5. Pick your Partner-in-crime’s brain: This could be anyone from your sibling, spouse, cousin, friend, work colleague, parent, teacher, or a counsellor who is a good listener and ideator, who understands inclusivity and knows to compassionately look at things from your point of view and then come up with perspectives that would make us think differently from what we had assumed. I read somewhere a quote on assumption – When you ‘assume’ you make an Ass of U and Me. This stuck with me forever. Now, every single time I move into the zone of assuming that I know what goes in someone else’s mind or what they might be feeling, this quote pops into my head and there ends my assumptions. I find that it is easier to clarify what we are thinking to be true or not by openly paraphrasing it without being judgmental when we articulate our thoughts. Doing so also helps in enriching the said relationship and increases our personal score on the integrity index!
   
   
6. Free yourselves from expectations: Everyone has expectations – we from others and others from us. Yet many of us want and wish to be free of it. This takes conscious effort, but it is worth the effort. When you free yourself from expectations, there are no disappointments. Here is something that can help you see how expectations are formed. When you are able to see that, you will figure out your own way to break free of it.
   
   

   

   My 100 word story first published on Momspresso

   
   
7. Solocation: Try going on a solocation, when possible. It really does wonders to self-care. Sometime in March I decided to go on a solocation, just to get away from the daily churn of things and came back after a relaxed couple of days and much more happier than how I left. My family also seemed to have benefited from my 2 days of absence.
   
   
8. Seek Professional Support: While the above do help, there might be instances where they may not be enough. In such situations, there is always an option to seek professional help through personal/relationship/parenting counselling as the need is and ensure that your (above) efforts also have a backing of the scientific process that would fit your lifestyle, temperament, family & individual needs, and abilities. Make sure that you are seeking the right kind of professional support and not just getting some random advice from friendly neighbour, family member, or well-wisher who might not completely understand all the variables that need to be addressed in a specific manner for you and your loved ones to benefit from the same. 

Were(Are) you a primary caregiver & have similar or other coping mechanisms? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks.

Lockdown Chaos: Disparities for the Primary Caregivers (Part 1 of 2)

One year after the first announcement of lockdown in India, I wrote a post on Momspresso on the topic I am not okay as a weekly challenge prompt. While writing that blog was cathartic, the constant changes due to the COVID restrictions, the new variants of the virus, the uncertainty of this pandemic lifestyle comes back to haunt us a lot. In these uncertain times, when schools went online, and work came into my home, I lost my personal space & “Me-time” routines. 

As an EdTech & Life Skills Consultant, I worked from home for the most part of my work engagements, yet there was a routine to it. I would finish my work, when my family was away from home in school and office respectively. In fact, I would also squeeze in some self-care routines daily to keep my cool when the family returned home in the evening. In the last year+ my routines have gone for a toss including the family chores.

The lack of routines, private space, and time for the primary caregiver (home maker) has also brought with it the focus on imbalanced division of labour within the home. While the home is everyone’s responsibility, most of the daily chores such as the upkeep of the house, inventory management & maintenance, bringing edible food to the table, catering to the never-ending snack requests of bored family members who do not understand or realise what goes into getting a quick bite-snack ready-to-consume leaves very little time for the primary caregiver for self-care and personal time. If this primary caregiver is also a part-time or full-time working person, then there is absolutely no time for anything else other than crossing out the to-do list from morning when they are awake till the time their body shuts down in exhaustion in the night. Add to this the fiasco of online school and the emotional toll that it has taken on the child’s psych and development. Not all schools and teachers are even partially trained to handle the nuances of online school along with the socio-emotional parameters that need to be given special care in this modality. 

Even in the so-called progressive homes where we celebrated equal participation, the pandemic showed that it really wasn’t the case. There was still quite a lot of imbalances where the primary care giver is implicitly expected to be the one to do the following:

• Plan & Provide for Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner and the odd snacks: Includes working with available resources inside home when there was strict lockdown, plan for refilling the dwindling supplies in the kitchen stock and be prepared for those uninformed requests of odd hour snacks because you couldn’t order in during the strict lockdown periods. This has a secondary problem of additional work of pots and pans being used, cleaned, and stored appropriately. There were days when domestic support was unavailable, and the family wasn’t even aware that they had to pitch in till either they were told or in some cases the caregiver had an emotional breakdown to bring to the attention of the family that (s)he needed help.
• Teaching Assistant (TA): The unwritten expectation of being the TA even outside the lockdown was there, but the lockdown saw the primary caregiver huff and puff and juggle with the available time at hand to ensure that the child(ren) sat through the online class, did their homework and class works (that were usually done in school and hence was never on the caregiver responsibility plate), projects – specifically group projects follow up on WhatsApp and hangouts, revision before the continuous year-long assessments, and fill in for the lack of understanding that they have due to not being able follow the class due to internet connectivity and clarity on a regular basis. If an educated stay-at-home-parent finds this difficult, then we can only imagine the plight an un(der)educated parent or an educated-working-parent would have been through.
• Routines: They are always there for a very good reason. You know what to expect and hence you can plan for contingencies. This way even the rare case where something that wasn’t anticipated happens, we are able to cope. Pandemic saw to it that all routines went out the door when the entire family started staying indoors. Everyday was a new day, new pattern, and hence new adaptation. Change management usually has a peak (when emotions are at a high), lull (when we start questioning the purpose of the change), and a plateau (when we enjoy the new norm while we prepare ourselves) before the next change that is around the corner comes upon us. Unfortunately, pandemic did not give us this luxury. There were only peak after peak that leads to exhaustion due to emotional overdose. Even those who were emotional intelligence or mindfulness practitioners, the pandemic induced anxiety & uncertainty caught up with them, pushing almost everyone into a collective burn out.
• Emotional Numbness: The loss of job, finances, lifestyle, routines, lives of loved ones and otherwise, was too much that there has been a collective numbing of emotions in dealing with the grief that these loses usually trigger. Added to this was the inability to follow through with the mourning rituals due to the COVID restrictions. In the process of following the SMS protocols, despite the availability of technology to stay connected, the personal touch that is paramount in dealing with grief was missing. The losses also were quite sudden which rendered those affected by it in a state of shock. Without the support system and the rituals of handling grief most moved from shock to numbing of emotions as they did not know what else to do. The grief was either suppressed or repressed and we know what happens when either of the routes are taken without handling grief as it should be.
• Domestic Violence, Child Marriage & Child Labour: In some cases, with the entire family stuck indoors and no reprieve to reach for support there has been an increase in the cases of domestic violence. Loss of income and rise of expenses ended up in many getting their underage children to go to work or to get them married off (mostly girls). 

These are just some of them among many such deviations from what we knew life as usual. 

While I enumerate the problems that contribute to the disruption of mental wellbeing of self and the family, what can we as individuals do to ensure our mental safety and that of our families in that order. You can never pour from an empty cup, which means the first need is to ensure our own mental and physical wellbeing. Will elaborate them in the coping mechanisms I benefitted from, in the second part. 

Were you a primary caregiver & have similar or other experiences? Would love to hear about it from you.

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s #CauseAChatter challenge - #GenderTalks and #MentalHealthTalks. Incidentally, this is also my 100^th blog.

You might also enjoy reading

• The Conundrum of the Gendered Glasses
• To Work or not to Work? A Stay-At-Home-Mom's Perspective

The Radiance of a Thousand Suns - Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

A one-liner before I delve deep into this book – I agree with what Gulzar sir has given as a caption for the book ‘Has the radiance of Blood and the Sun’. 

I won this book for posting a comment on an Author live session on Blogchatter – #BlogchatterWritFest – in March 2021. 

While I have read many storylines with a woman as the protagonist (starting with Nancy Drew & Alice in Wonderland, during my school days), this book was completely different to read and connect emotionally as well. In fact, the narrative of the entire masterpiece was so well interwoven from the point of view of different women who had different lived experiences and strong in their own sense of being, to bring about change in the societal narratives, in their own ways. 

I was floored by the author’s take on Violence and Silence in that order while bringing out women-centric narratives on the 1947 partition of India and the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots. Violence always leaves a deep gash not just physically, but also emotionally, that takes probably generations to even become a scar. Healing would take forever, as the grief that violence leaves behind is just too heavy to process and handle any faster. 

In a conversation between a grandmother and a granddaughter (who lost her mother at birth – a story of gross negligence due to misplaced priorities – read the book to know more on this), the grandmother, Biji, talks about a metaphor of all women invisibly pregnant, carrying inside them millions of stories to tell, yet silent and hence yet to deliver. This metaphor was just mind-blowing and so well relatable, especially as chapters unfolded and story after story showed why women chose to remain invisibly pregnant. Even today many of us choose this path for the exact same reasons. Wish it were not so. Reading this book strengthened my resolve to use my voice and writing to break that vicious cycle of pregnant silence and bring out narratives from the point of view of a woman if not for the world, at least to my circle of influence and create a shift in the way things have been traditionally valued and acted upon, some of which are so outdated and devoid of logic. 

The entire book speaks volumes on various coping mechanisms that women have traditionally practiced dealing with violence, trauma, idiocy, and more, of this patriarchally structured society, including memory holes that are so relevant even during the #metoo movement where the trauma of rape, sexual abuse (especially Child Sexual Abuse – CSA) and harassment follows this pattern of a non-event because the society wants to erase the unpleasantness of such occurrences. By making them non-events and not recording them in the narrative of history/news, we, as a society, tend to forget the event completely, a few days (probably months) after its occurrence. This gives rise to invisible people – the unperson – those who were silent sufferers of the traumatic actions meted out by perpetrators (whether it is war or abuse) - one such story is that of Jyot a survivor of both these traumatic incidents. 

I could never relate to the heroic narratives of 1947 and 1984 as part of recorded history, without feeling the pain, suffering, and the feeling of emptiness when the question invariably popped ‘What was the point of all these?’. This book brings to light why I kept feeling that emptiness and why that question kept popping. Despite not being close to the places where these two historic traumatic events happened, it still has a wrenching effect in my gut. I can only imagine how much it must have hurt those who were strongly associated with these events in any form. 

The first few chapters that dealt with the 1947 partition narratives/perspectives, from the point of view of women and girl children were overwhelmingly traumatic to read without breaks. Yet they were descriptive enough for anyone who reads it to see what a woman/girl saw from her point of view. 

This book needs to be read by everyone to understand a woman’s point of view of how it is to be considered as an invisible being or as an object of possession every time a man wanted to prove his superiority! It also would serve well to be reminded that in doing so there is no manliness that is depicted, but only the childish aggression of patriarchy is exhibited, showing how immature the entire concept itself is. Women always bounce back to move on with life irrespective of the bad cards they might be dealt, not by life itself, but by the idiocrasy exhibited in name of patriarchy, religion, caste, gender, race, and more! This proves their high emotional intelligence – either developed by force of situational demands or by design and their ability to heal themselves and the world around them every single time, till it becomes too much for them to bear (the inter-generational trauma - which also is beautifully depicted through the book).

The radiance of the narrative by author Manreet Sodhi Someshwar is blindingly bright to go through all filtered glasses worn. 

This post is part of Blogchatter's #CauseAChatter - #GenderTalks

The Conundrum of the Gendered Glasses

Riya wants to get back to work just a month after her daughter was born. She has been well advised by her gynecologist and pediatrician about what she needs to do for her baby and care for herself when she takes on the additional load of being a working parent in the first year of child care. Her family though supportive of her decision is concerned for her health. She can hear some comments that judge her for making the choice to get back to work that early. She steps into her workplace, she can hear whispers of conversation that she knows is about her being back at work so soon.

"How could she leave a month old baby in someone's care and be here at work so soon?"

"She values career over her child. Poor child. It will grow up aching for its mother!"

Such comments were a couple among many more that judge her of being a bad parent despite the fact that her child is in good and safe hands. Riya's spouse is a consultant and has the flexibility to work at his convenience without any impact on his career or the income. Still, these comments just get passed with no care on how it could affect Riya.

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Mahesh visited his wife and son in the hospital where she delivered, to say bye to her as he was leaving for the USA that evening, on a long term assignment. Vani tried her level best to see if she could defer his travel for a few more months till she and her son could travel with him. Mahesh refused and everyone else, including her own parents, convinced her that her ask for Mahesh to cancel or defer to stay back with her till she was travel-ready wasn't fair. She wondered how he could leave so soon after becoming a father, unfortunately, she was the only one who thought that way!

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Siva has an offer letter from a Fortune500 as a trainee business analyst and can start work once he completes his graduation. He is passionate about Dance & Theater. He is an amazing singer and a scriptwriter. He was a very active member of the Theaters club at his university. He also had applied to a small theater group that was active in his home town, when on campus and has an invitation letter for an appointment to discuss his future with the group! He is afraid that his father would not let him choose the latter despite it being his passion. In addition to passion, he also excels in the skills to succeed in this line of career. His father's dream was for him to join a Fortune company. When he asks for help from his uncle and mother to convince his father to agree to the theater option, both of them deny and in turn tell him that he should take up the corporate offer letter. A career in the fine arts wasn't easy and that he would face a lot of hardships. A very upset Siva sat down to write an apology mail for not being able to make it to the meeting with the theater group as it was the same day of his joining at the corporate firm!

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Nila wanted to serve the nation by being part of the National Defence. The instant she told this decision to her family, she was met with vehement denial citing various reasons some of which even hurt her self-image and questioned her capabilities. Her family in unison said that a career in defence was not for girls and that she should choose options like homemaking, nutrition & dietetics, beautician and such, that were well suited for girls to pursue as a profession. No amount of discussion could change her family's opinion and she was forced to take up Psychology as her choice of graduation.

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Each of these snippets above is an example of how gender norms and stereotyping adds to the stress of being judged or forced to choosing something that isn't their own! 

The first two snippets show the difference in the way people treat the life choices made by individuals based on their gender and the associated gender norms. A father leaving a newborn for work-related reasons is not even discussed but a mother choosing to go back to work very soon after childbirth is judged for making that choice. In fact, Vani is judged for asking her husband to postpone the work travel so that he can be with her and his son.  

The right to make a choice is basic irrespective of gender. Whether a man decides to take up the role of a househusband or pursue a career in gynecology or beauty, it is his personal choice to make based on his interest and ability. Similarly, if a woman wishes to become a biker, war journalist, or heavyweight champion, it is her choice to make. Gender and gender norms should not interfere with this process. The freedom to decide what they wish to do with their lives must be theirs to make despite their gender.

The above was a creation for the tagged challenge #EachForEqual #6Blogsin6Days blogs on Momspresso in March 2020, just before lockdown. There were 5 more written in the same theme which you can read (for now) here:

Breaking Stereotypes as Parents (Proud Mommy Moment)

Breaking Stereotypes - Role of Media

Respect - A Two Way Street   

Homemaker or Professional Parents    

Hierarchical or Equal - How do you see the World around?

Welcoming Positive Changes in the Indian mindset !

When you are growing up in India, depending on the parenting styles of your parents, each of us get a very minor glimpse (so as to say the tip of an iceberg) of what it means to spearhead the running of a household seamlessly. But when you are married and on your own, nothing prepares you for what hits you straight on. If you want to continue having a happy, contended, and satisfying life for not just yourself but for those around you, there are several decisions that you will make that you may not fully agree with, one or both of us have to arrive at a compromise - the fondly called middle ground/road in our household - so as to not rock the boat. In such cases, some choose to keep their career on the back burner (which is what I did and did it willingly and voluntarily and had the complete support of my spouse), but there are others who do not want to. They give it their all to still hold on to both their personal job profile and a professional job profile but I feel are not duly appreciated/acknowledged. In some scenarios, women give up their career or take a short/long break from their career to relocate due to the demands of their husbands (in rare cases in India, and a slightly higher numbers in other countries, the reverse where the husband gives up his career for his wife's career progress).

In my case, when I decided to take a small break from my work to sort out my time and home management mess before I start looking for another job and add on the professional work management angle to the existing mess. Then I got pregnant and I saw no point in going back to work because, anywhere I join, my job will be evaluated based on my marital status, my pregnancy and my motherhood rather than my work output and capability. I know this to be true because, I have heard comments (made by colleagues when I was part of the paid work force and friends - male/female - alike) to the extent where it is discussed openly, without fear of being unfairly biased, about how marriage will reduce the productivity of a woman (sometimes - a rarity - even for men as they will have to keep up to the so called undue demands of the newly wedded wife and her family) as she will have to choose between home and work. I have also noticed that there is a kind of unwritten policy across most organisations (even in teaching profession) where, the promotion of a deserving woman might not happen either because she is pregnant and expecting or she is getting married and there is a possibility of her moving from the current work location. This is not so in the case of a man who is about to become a husband or a father. Despite having proven their capabilities by working twice as hard and delivering much better than their male counterparts, sometimes, the female employee gets thrown out of the promotion list (if questioned on this, they would be told that they were given a salary hike for their performance but were not deserving of a promotion) if they are pregnant or going to get married due to which they might anticipate a physical relocation.

I do not know if it was coincidence or there is a change in the thought process of people in general, advertisements these days have more progressive messages. Most of these advertisements have English subtitles as well.

The expressions on both the actors faces (the subtle pride in the face of the husband when he tells his wife about what her choice meant to him and the mixture of surprise and  gratitude - on her face is priceless to watch.

The concept of being thankful and acknowledging the choices that the woman had to make in her life for the man to be able to pursue his career (or vice versa where applicable) itself a welcome change. Personally, I think it is brilliant to bring about this change in advertisements as it reaches maximum number of people, different age groups and genders and will have the maximum impact to bring about the needed change in the thought process.

Other such advertisement series that caught my attention and are my favourite these days are

Myntra's "Bold is Beautiful" series - A couple of them that I loved the most:

 

The Move  Ad talking about how it is this society is skewed in thinking it is normal for women to always be ready to follow their husband's job relocation, irrespective of the impact it will have on their own personal careers as this is the "norm", but when the reverse is expected, the man does not feel obligated to support his wife and relocate if the situation demanded him to. The advertisement shows the decisiveness of the woman to go ahead with the decision to relocate in lieu of her career and how she explains it to him.

In The Calling  Ad, Radhika Apte being the pregnant executive having a conversation with an older, maybe a senior female executive, about how the hypocritical the decision to sideline her from the promotion that she much deserves by considering her pregnancy as a hinderance, despite the fact that it was her tireless effort in getting the deal/project for the company. The way she makes herself heard and at the same time brings forth the discriminative behaviour of the management with dignity, poise and confidence won my heart and filled me with pride to see that the thought at least is out in the open (or should I say, "the cat is out of the bag"), the rectification for the problem will surely follow through.

BIBA - Change the conversation series of Ads

This Ad talks about how a pre-marriage discussion turns into something quite delightful! The ad has English subtitles as well for people who do not understand the language spoken. 

A prospective bride groom and his family visiting a prospective bride's family to meet her and then decide if the families can move forward with the marriage proposal. A typical first step in any Indian arranged marriage scenario. The bride is apprehensive about how this would go and below is the conversation between the father and daughter and the rest of the gang assembled in her living room (have tried to translate the Hindi conversation below)

Father: Aren't you ready yet? Everyone is waiting for you downstairs.

Daughter: Papa (Dad), how can I decide over a samosa and a coffee that he is the one with whom I can spend my entire life with?

A stern stare from the father followed by " Come soon" and then he turns and leaves.She sighs and follows suit and joins the rest of the family in the living room.

Boy's mother: No Thank you. You have liberally fed us. (Transliteration. Intended meaning being,"Your hospitality is overwhelming"). We like your daughter, Payal, a lot and are happy to agree for this marriage proposal from our end. Do we assume that it is the same from your end as well?

Payal's father: Of course! But we would also like to visit yor in your home.

Boy's mother: You are most welcome. But why?

Payal's father: Our daughter would also like to see if your son can manage a household or not? If he can cook or not! Only then can we decide on giving her hand in marriage.

Boy's mother: (laughs) He doesn't even know to boil water. On rare occassions, he makes noodles in a microwave.

Payal's father: I am sorry, but my daughter cannot live her entire life on just noodles.

A pregnant pause. The boy himself speaks up.

Boy: Sir, why don't you come to our home after 10 days?

Payal's Dad: Why in 10 days?

Boy: Sir, by then I will learn to cook / create something. You can then come to meet the boy!

Smiles all around.

The scenario is very different and refreshing in comparison to the traditional norm of the Indian society.

Preganews Ad: Another brilliant ad film on how the corporate is being sensitive to the life of a professional woman/asset who is pregnant instead of making her life more difficult by excluding her out of major meetings quoting her pregnancy, and the challenges that it bring with it, as a reason.

Here is the script for the benefit of those who do not understand the language that the Ad is in:

Two collegues are discussing in the conference room when one tells the other that something needs to be done about the staff cost as the result of this quarter are very low. The other is deep in thought and enquires about a specfic staff named Swetha to the peon for which he answers that he is going to get her things next. The executive instructs the peon that from now on in every meeting he is to bring in water for her every 30 minutes.

This specific staff's cubicle is cleared after office hours, all her things are placed in a box and moved. A lady staff asks the peon if the fan does not give out smell and another lady staff talks to someone on the phone instructing them to place the new chair ordered downstairs and leaves for the night. Next day morning, you see a lady climbing up the stairs and coming into office. She smiles and wishes someone good morning only to turn to her desk and find nothing. She asks, "Where's my stuff?"

A colleague answers, "Go down and talk to the HR".

She talks to herself, "How could they do this to me when I am pregnant?" She assumes the worst under the circumstances. She lets out a frustrated sigh, turns around, and walks back down the stairs towards the HR, while she passes a cabin that lights up sensing movement. She turns and on the door sees her name and enters. The rest of the conversation is in English.

Even some of the Tamil daily soaps are interesting. A daily soap called "Maapillai" on Vijay TV talks about how a man marries and goes to live in the house of his wife with her 4 sisters and parents. The emotions, feelings and thoughts that a woman goes through after marriage while trying to adjust into a new family and their routine is now the norm for this man who has moved into his wife's home. A revolutionary thought in itself considering that the norm in Indian marriages is for the girl to move out from her parental home into the in-laws home after marriage. This soap also talks about the general parenting mistakes (like how the boys are completely pampered by their mothers to the extent that they cannot function independently even to get their own coffee or clean and iron their own clothes) and touches upon the other societal stereotypes that are not so nice.

These ads and the new story-lines that are trying to break stereotypes, bring in hope that the change in the thought process will soon happen even where it matters and not just remain as advertisements or movies on screen or in words as blogs/books. More power to the positive change that is slowly but steadily taking over the society at large. Cheers to a better future in the making !

To Work or not to Work? A Stay-At-Home-Mom's Perspective

If you think this is about me a stay-at-home-mom's (SAHM) dilemma before or after I had kids, you are partially right, but this is not just about that. This question "To work or not to Work" is something that I have asked myself millions of times at various stages in my life, after I completed my basic education (12 + 5 years of college in one of the esteemed universities - probably the only university - that offers integrated dual degrees in India). This is also a question I have been asked by many (family, friends and strangers alike) over the years. This is also a question, I know for a fact that my husband also keep asking himself and has been asked by many others that he has come across in his life so far including our children and me. Now I can see cog wheels turning inside your heads when you are contemplating the various scenarios and instances that this could have happened. So let me start with the most obvious of this scenario that deals with me (because as humans we are always self obsessed and like to talk a lot about what goes on with our lives, especially the imbalances in it and I am no exception) and then move on to the more intriguing aspect which is for a husband, the male (for whom to work is the norm and there can never be any other question especially one) that even considers about not working.

The female/wife/mother/woman angle

A couple of years ago, while I was travelling to my husband's home town, during our India visit with the children (just me and my 2 children), in a train journey, I happened to strike a conversation with a co-passenger, a stranger, who was also travelling to a destination close to mine. She was travelling to her home town to visit her parents after year of her second delivery and was travelling alone with 2 children. So this was a conversation between two recent time mothers (My youngest was couple of years older than her youngest).

She had recently resigned her job after using up her maternity vacation (paid and unpaid), and was doubting herself if she took the right choice. Somehow, she found me safe enough to share her personal information with me (which I might not have done without a little prodding). Guess it must have more to do with the intensity of the self doubting that she was going through rather than my being a safe enough sounding board.

"I just resigned my job as a Team Lead an IT firm. I used to draw a good salary and now I am wondering if I did the right thing by giving up my job. But when I see my children and the fact that I am able to make sure what I put in my daughter's lunch box is something fresh, home cooked and healthy, when she leaves for school in the morning, and the fact that I can attend to beck and call of my younger daughter every time she cries for a comforting hug or has melt down for my complete attention, makes me think it was the right thing to do. When I meet my friends from school and college, I start doubting myself as they have progressed in their career and they also have a family. Some days are so depressing, I do not have peers around me to have intellectual conversations with, I feel there is lack of challenge to my thought process. I feel that I am wasting away my life by choosing to stay at home instead of working and putting to use the education that I was privileged to have. I feel that I am doing injustice to my qualifications." Listening to her made me think how similar she sounded and looked to how I felt when I resigned my job a few years back. She asked me, "Are you working?". I said "I am not". Then, she asked me about my educational qualifications and when I told her that I had an integrated dual-degree from one of the prestigious institutes in India and a PG diploma, she was surprised and her immediate next question was "With a single Bachelors degree, I am doubting myself for not working, with your educational qualifications don't you feel you are wasting it by staying home?"

I contemplated a bit before I answered her. This involved opening up about my personal life (including opinions, state of mind, and choices) to a stranger and I wanted to be absolutely sure if I was ready to. But then, looking at her dilemma, made me think how nice it would have been if I did have someone to talk to every time I went through this kind of self doubt myself. So we continued our conversation. I told her, "The choice to work or to stay at home depends on your personal take on what your priority is. As clichéd as it sounds, that is the truth. You need to have your choices and priorities right. Otherwise it is going to be a very difficult task to stay happy and contended in the long run."

"You make it sound simple.", she said. "Believe it or not, it is that simple, but to arrive at this state of clarity is a long journey which is filled with self doubt and struggles. When we compare ourselves with those friends / colleagues of ours who have decided to continue to pursue their career (what ever their reasons behind it are), then we are doing injustice to ourselves. You cannot compare apples with oranges. It is not a fair comparison. A good option is to list what your needs are and proceed from there. No solution is perfect. There is always scope for improvements and adjustments. Do what is needed to make life easier and happier for yourself and your family."

"Don't you ever feel that you made a mistake by deciding to quit your job?" she asked.

"Yes, almost every instance I feel taken for granted or ignored, I wonder if I took the right decision. Then, I think if I had continued to work, would I have been happier than what I am now? Every time the answer to that question is NO, and immediately my doubts vanish. The reason behind is the fact that I know I would not have given my 100% to the 'paying job' (career) and then come back home to give a 100% to my family. And personally, if I cannot do that, then I cannot be content, in turn affecting my family. So it all drills down to what you really want - a successful career (where you will need at least some dependency from others around you to tackle day-to-day chores), or just concentrate full-time on your family (giving up your professional career, being able to better manage a Home-Maker role hands on)". We continued to converse till the children slept & parted ways at our respective destinations.

Now it is 11 years since I resigned my last job and I did not resign just because I became a mother. I resigned because, I was struggling to balance between a demanding professional life and tiring needs at home. I was just married (a year into marriage when I resigned) and was immediately in-charge of managing a household (about which I had a vague idea but was unprepared when the whole thing was starring at my face). If I could not do justice to the roles that I chose to play without having to depend on others around me for support to even deliver my basic job requirements, then I would not be personally satisfied and happy. So the better option for me was to give up my professional career so that I could give my 100% to my personal career (Home Management)! But from the time I made this decision, I am constantly challenged by many (family and friends alike) that I am wasting my studies by staying at home. How am I wasting my knowledge gained, If I can use what I have studied / learnt to apply them in my day-to-day tasks and make it enriching to everyone whose life I touch including my own family?

When I put down my resignation, my colleagues asked me, "What would you do sitting at home all day? I will go mad if I had to do that!". My answer was, "For now, I am just taking a break from professional life, take a step back, re-assess my stakes and then move forward from there depending on what I decide as my future path. Till then I am going to enjoy a vacation.". But truth be told, the "vacation" never came. When I resigned from job, I tried my level best to keep in touch with family and friends. I thought I had 8 hours of free time (the time I spent in an office when I was working) at hand and could pursue anything that I wanted to including to revive my hobbies. That never happened. At risk of repeating what many have already said, the day of a home maker is filled with tasks that never end. So instead of doing that, let me tell you how my typical day would be. My typical day would start at 6 in the morning and end at 10 p.m. (ideally it should and used to till I had children) I do have free hours during the day when I can basically laze around in front of the TV and watch serials or programmes of my choice. But that comes with the tough choice that I had to make to forego the organised world of profession where my work would be periodically evaluated and accolades and brick bats would follow the normal course, based on the kind of deliverable/output I gave, and follow a path where the word "organised" becomes a case of luxury. Any work I do is taken for "granted", because I am at home and have all the time in the world to do it, and unless I really went all out to make sure that I spell out exactly what I do, and what it translates into when put in monetary, time and effort perspective (difficult to bring it into that perspective but with some effort can be done) contributes a hell a lot of roles and responsibilities clubbed into one complete package, I would never have a peer review or appraisal that will put my household work in the right perspective and give me a sense of achievement from someone else's point of view.

Every time I visit my relatives or friends, they never fail to ask me about what I do now that both my children are in school full time. I used to try to tell them how my day is filled with tasks to ensure that the rest of the family has a peaceful life especially with a travelling husband (his job requirement demands him to), and a young family settled abroad with a single earning member. I had friends remark jovially that somehow I always tend to remain busy despite no employment. There used to be time when that statement hurt me, because I am not "jobless". I just do not have a job that pays money. I do not have a job that has a regular evaluation process set up. I do not have set standard or benchmark to which I can compare myself and readjust or re-position my progress. My job requires me to wear multiple hats that include the roles of a:

• Day Planner - every day I plan to finish 10 odd jobs but at the end of the day, I see that the jobs that I planned to finish have not been started at all while I ended up doing 15 other jobs which were not part of my day's plan. 
• Cook/Chef - try to start making a particular spread for lunch or dinner and then suddenly figure out that during the course of the day, you had planned to get the necessary ingredients for it but never got around to do the shopping because something else came up and this got left out and so mid way you get creative and come up with a new dish of your own and guess what, it becomes a hit, but you do not know how to replicate it again.
• Child Carer - You just dropped off your older one at school, finished shopping and running some errands that might or might not have included a visit to government offices or any such place that required you to patiently wait for an hour in queue for a job that took less that 5 minutes once you reached the counter, and are entering home while the younger one is sleeping in the stroller/buggy peacefully, so you decide to leave the child in the stroller so as not to disturb and try to catch up on the zzzzs that you lost the previous night because your older one was complaining of pain in the ear/nose/eyes/teeth/stomach/back/knee/there between the legs/pinky toes... and you get a call from the school saying that you need to come to school because the older child has had a small accident and though there is nothing to worry, needs to be picked up and taken home so that the rest of the day can be spent at home resting. So you rush back to school in what ever mode of transport necessary with the younger one waking up mid way and yelling all the way back till you reach home and there goes your zzzzzzzzzs.
• Personnel Assistant & Accountant - Irrespective of whether you are educated or uneducated, I think every wife (in the current scenario I should be saying the staying home partner but I would not be sure if I would be stating the facts as I only know what goes on in my home) goes through this. Act as a reminder service for the husband for even keeping in touch with family and friends, to pay bills on time, to ensure the posting of those odd letters/applications that still need to be done by manual post and not through emails, fill out forms online for stuff like passport renewal, visa processing, ordering gifts for the birthday parties that the children might end up attending over the weekends, scan bills that need to submitted for reimbursements, and sometimes even proxy for the husband not being able to get away from work to attend to the extended family's needs.
• Nurse - any day any time to attend to the first aid to reduce pain and discomfort for the family members until the time that the actual doctor's appointment is available (which most of the times happens to be after the pain or discomfort or ailment disappears with the home based remedies that have been tried)
• Tutor & Governess - After school, the children need to practice what they have learnt in school and for families like ours where we are not sure where we are going to settle down, the necessity to keep up with what other parts of the world also do including learning mother tongue or a language that the country that we might possibly move to next has as its primary or secondary language, fill the gaps that the current curriculum might have in comparison with the rest of the education systems...
• Domestic Helper - Includes dish cleaning, window cleaning, spring cleaning, weekly cleaning, moping floors, regular laundry and ironing, small fixes like fixing buttons and tears in the seams in dresses/pants/shirts, fixing DIY shelves and work table that get delivered home in a box, minor fixes in scooters/bicycles, electrical fixtures at home like replacing worn out bulbs, mend minor leaks...

are some that I creatively could name and provide a sample of what that particular role would demand. Over the years, I have learned to condition myself to smile at such questions. I smile not because, I can't answer them, but I do not see a point in answering it as what ever answer I give will never completely convey my experience of my day.

When a sibling/cousin or a working friend or spouse callously says, "You would not understand the stress that the work place politics and expectations have on me", "I am paid to work not to take time off from work", I used to feel like an outsider and subdued. I remember when I used to work, my mentor told me once, "If you want to understand how to effectively play work place politics, then learn to play politics at home. There is never a better place than there to learn how to do it". I did not understand what he meant at that time as it was my first job and I was just fresh out of college living by myself. But now, almost 2 decades after that "gyan" session, after living as a full time home maker, I completely understand what he meant. I can tell you there is no better place to learn the nuances of Organisational Behaviour and master the art of excelling in the game of Organisational Politics than home, where there is an additional twist of emotions and relationships coming into play which is non-existent in a professional environment. If I have to elaborate on it, then I am sure I will end up writing a complete book on this. Suffice it to say, family is nothing less than an organisation and even more complicated than it and the experience, personal growth and sense of achievement, well rounded (read emotionally beaten up) approach and humility that it has given me to have crossed the hurdles that I have with or without help, I doubt I would have had it if I had chosen to lead a professional career. Enough said about myself. Moving on to the other side.

The Male/husband/father angle

When I decided to quit my job, we had just married and a year into marriage and had to make adjustments to ensure that the financial void that my leaving the job would create can be balanced by what ever job, whatever role that my husband took up. We were in a city living in a rented apartment with substantial rental cost. Added to this was we were planning to expand our family and hence had to save up for that as well. Both of us being family centric, we did not want to leave our respective families in the lurch, not that they were financially dependent on us but we wanted to do our share of providing for them financially as well in addition to being available to them physically and emotionally. This being said, he did not even think before he congratulated me on deciding to quit my job. He has never, till date, asked why I decided to quit (I did talk with him before putting down my papers but not for permission, more as informing him of my decision and discuss when and how to execute the decision) without consulting him. For my in-laws it was a happy news as they belonged to the section of people (including some of the text books that till date have the same clichéd role definitions) who thought once married the wife managed the home, while the husband went out to work. This decision taken, we both were not really prepared for what was to hit us after this. The initial days where I was enjoying my new-found free time, I am sure he was going through the turmoil of having to carry the burden of financial stability of the entire family on his shoulders all by himself. But there has never been a single day or single instance when he has complained of having to carry that burden alone.

Instead, every time I talked to him about getting back to work only to help out in easing this burden, his answer to me has always been "I am fine. The home management is in the hands of a capable person who is doing a good job of doing it with just single income. So you do not need to go to work just for the financial aspect of it; but if you do want to work because you think that would give you personal happiness and contentment, then go ahead. Otherwise, we are fine as we are."

To ensure that we lead a comfortable life and not have to compromise on our standard of living, he decided to take up Onsite roles (overseas). A person who is more than happy to go back to his home town and home land at the drop of a hat because he can stay closer to extended family and friends, decided to spread his wings and explore the world purely because it provided him with opportunities to scale heights that he needed to scale to keep up the standard of living for us, provide for his family, as well as, it was an opportunity to give my young family an experience of a life time that many have not had the pleasure of having. We have been lucky to live in 3 countries outside India (US, France and now UK) and enjoy the cultural experience that each country gave us, travel to more places than most in my family have ever travelled in our age and give our children an openness to the concept of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable because of our extensive travel and meeting people with different points of view.

There have been several instances where me and my children included, have blamed my husband, of prioritising work ahead of anything else because he has had to miss birthdays, anniversaries, and marriages in the family as there was probably some meeting or some travel scheduled that he could not miss (even if those events were on weekends). During these times, there were extensive exchange of words between us which have been quite hurtful, but he did what he did because he thought that that was the best option at that time.

Both of us have matured in our thoughts and probably in our level of self worth as well. Now he follows a strict code of not working (official) during weekends and spends all of his time for the family and during these two days, he also manages to give me at least a half day of break from my home maker's role where he handles the kitchen, chores, children, attends to their needs, dons all of my multiple hats, makes time to keep in touch with family and friends. Despite this, he goes through a hell a lot criticism for doing a "woman's job", to which he turns a deaf ear and moves on with a smile that never fades . I would say, in my home, even I manage to get half a day off, but the man of my home never has time away from his work. Right from the time when my oldest was 5 months old and I felt like a milk production unit, my husband never once frowned on me when I used to literally shove our child in his hand the minute he steps through the front door after a tiring day at work (so that I can then peacefully attend to the task of making dinner and clearing the dishes), or to happily be the play partner to her when she decided that she was going be playing during her Indian evening while we were residing in the USA and then next morning leave for work despite not having been able to sleep off the tiredness of the previous day (and night) only to come back in the evening and go through the entire thing once again with the never fading smile.

Do what works for you

We are at a happy state of mind now, with the choices that we have made in our lives. By choosing to stay at home and not work at all, I am available to my children always at home for what ever and when ever they need me. I keep my house in order all on my own with no additional domestic help or help from family. I spend time with my children to help them with their studies and play. And even after all this, I am not remunerated, never go through regular appraisal cycles to evaluate the quality of my work, nor am I acknowledged on a daily basis for the job I do to make life easier for others around me. Equally my husband, after toiling for 5 days at his regular paid job, does not even think twice before he takes up the job to support me on the 2 days of the week, when most would like to kick back and relax.

To do a job when you are paid for it, appreciated for it, remunerated in the form of hike and promotions is easier to do mainly because of the external motivation that the job gives you, but to continue to doing this job of stay-at-home-mom, and to jump in to share equal responsibility from your spouse and even go the extra mile of giving her the much needed break from routine (or the lack of it) after toiling the entire working week in a regular paid job instead of taking the weekend off to recuperate for the next week, after doing it for 11 years now, I can say that, to keep doing this despite all that I mentioned above, requires immense courage and self motivation that can only come if you really like what you have chosen to do. So for all those who are going through this dilemma (life is filled with them - a statement that even my 9-yr old daughter seems to have understood which I consider as my achievement as a mother), think of what you want and then choose the path that would give you exactly what you want. Never compare yourself with anyone else because, each person is unique. You can have help manuals for products, not for people. What works for me might not work for you. So you are the best judge of what will work for you and never allow anyone else to tell you otherwise. It is okay to get opinions from others but do not let others decide for you. It is you and only you who can answer that question of "To Work or Not to Work?" #NoConditionsApply