If the cloth tag says “hand wash” or “dry clean only”, its means help but if it says like the above cloth-line ‘ Give it to your Woman, ITS HER JOB’, its time to scissor the thought as well as the cloth in pieces.
Honestly, for the initial twenty years of my life, I never saw my Dad participating in any household chores. He would always do things which required an outdoor visit, mechanical fixings or physical repairs. In fact in the early years of my life I grew up thinking that- ‘this was a man’s job and that was a woman’s job’. To say the least, I sensed an imbalance inside my own house. I sincerely did not like the fact that my Dad, whom I loved and respected so much was not helping Mum in the house when they both were working. Of course there were many things that Dad was doing and Mum was not but still I felt why was cooking, cleaning and laundry only her job.
I looked for answers and gradually as I grew up, I often questioned Dad. Sometimes I even told him that he should realize that he is the lucky one that mum doesn’t complain and let him have all the fun, for I wouldn’t let my husband have these privileges. To this my father used to laugh and reply- Of course, man and wife should share household responsibilities. I do not do the laundry and the cooking only because your Mum does it too well.
And pat would come my reply- Daddy, please find me a husband like you but additionally please ensure he is really good with cooking and doing the laundry too…
Well as destiny would have it, my Dad let me have my choice. And when you are head over heels in love, you tend to forget some serious things. Before I could discuss cooking and laundry with hubby, the nuptials were already done. Gradually, the laundry bag began to pile up in one corner of our newly built bedroom. Both of us smartly ignored it for as many days as possible because marriage anyways brings lots of new clothes. I waited till I had worn the last gaudy suit from my closet.
On the fourth Sunday after our marriage, I woke up to a throbbing headache. In the night before I had felt jittery because it was the first day when I had to wake up to the responsibilities of the house. We had planned this Sunday to ourselves consciously taking a break from the family lunches and dinners. As I sat rubbing my eyes, suddenly they twinkled at the sight of the empty laundry bag. Just then Hubby walked in the room with a cup of coffee and said- ‘do not worry about your clothes, I am really good with laundry. I realized I could hear a distant noise of the washing machine in full gear.
Since then we do not have a rule of the house that its ‘His job’ or ‘My job’. Sometimes its only him, sometimes its only me and quite many times we do the laundry together. I must confess in the last three years, I have picked up lots of laundry gyaan from him too.
- Choice of good detergent
- Separation of the colors
- Bleaching or Starching
- Use of water at proper temperature for different clothes
- Ways of putting clothes in the dryer, etc
- Folding and stacking of clothes
Believe me the conversations that have happened over laundry have helped us gel better. I must tell you the best, now even my Dad helps Mum with the laundry… yes and they enjoy it much like their walks, shopping and cuppa of tea together.
Tell your spouses-‘Lets talk over the laundry’
Laundry can be a great team activity on Sundays. Try luring your husbands and if they don’t listen, get a big white chart sheet, write the below in bold and stick it inside/outside your husband’s wardrobe.
Hubby Dear,
If you don’t do laundry today, I’m gonna have to buy new clothes tomorrow. Remember I have your credit cards and I am good with remembering your secret numbers too.
Below are the startling stats from Ariel which I do not want to agree to but I know they hold in true.
Honestly I know a lot of my friends whose hubby love doing the laundry just like mine. I am sure the other men who still haven’t taken a liking for laundry can try giving it a attempt. Who knows you may start loving it soon… 😉
“I am writing for #IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ariel.”
Hi Manjulika,..Normally I like your posts. I am amazed to find that you got a tag that says – “Give it to your woman…” Haha..anyways. yes men need to help their women in household chores and many men today do that too. But there are reasons why household work majorly goes to women. If they are not working in corporate world, and there is only 20-25% women who work in corporate world then they don’t have any responsibility at all.
I live alone and I do all my work. If a woman thinks that this is oppression or inequality she should not get married in first place. We all have responsibilities and no one can deny that. We have gadgets to help us, most households have maids, but we men need to undergo a lot of challenges outside that women do not face inside their homes. They have no competition, no quality check, no fear of being sacked, backstabbed, But we men have all these. We work hard outside so that our families, the women and children can live happily and stay safe. This understanding that men should equally contribute to household work, while the same expectation is not set for women that they should contribute equally to household finances, is very wrong and will create gender hatred. because women are not duty bound to do anything, they can never be punished for not doing anything, many of them enjoy free lunch just by getting married. Whereas we men can be financially and physically punished if we don;t earn enough or fail to protect families.
Brands create such campaigns for making money by creating disturbance in our families. We bloggers help spreading their message without understanding that this will one day ruin our own families..or may be that of our future generation.
Hello Parthsadhukhan,
I do not understand how a lady does not have challenges inside a home. If she is working at par of her husband then she faces all the work life stress along with house hold chores.
Even in case of a home maker challenges are there in a different way. First of all she is not entitled of a holiday. After 5 or 6 days of working in a week most of the human beings are given a day off to rejuvenate them selves. In case of women it is assumed they will continue their work without any leave.
People get paid in terms of salary, rewards and apprecations outside a home. In case of a home it is an unspoken rule that women are supposed to continue all their work without any expectation or any appreciation. Definitely I am not in favour of any monetary reward but it is also very necessary to appreciate their efforts. Only because of womens’ unending efforts other family member get food, clothes and other comforts in time on daily basis. At least they deserve appreciation for that.
At out side world most of the tasks are well defined, but in case of home this is not the case. Specially when a family is having kids, women get sleepless nights along with whole day work.
Now it is time to change the mentality that this work must be done by a man and that by a woman. As the time is changing we can review our thought process and work out a way where nobody is going to complaint.