Stained clothes? Immediate thought- Mom will know how to get
rid of them! Why is it that for years we have been conditioned to think that
only women will be able to handle laundry? Many schools have Home Science as a
subject and you’ll rarely see any boy student being a part of any such class!
If we ponder to think back to the situation existing about
thirty years ago, before washing machines and Laundromats became household
words, in a city like Delhi, it was very common to have the “Dhobi” coming home
every Sunday to collect the week’s soiled laundry and give back the beautifully
starched and crisp clothes of the previous week.
With the advent of a much busier lifestyle and the coming of
synthetic materials, the good old leisurely days of the weekly Dhobi have
vanished (though it’s another matter that even then, the Dhobi book of the
house was maintained by the very efficient housewife!). Now the clothes are
washed at home and when ironing is required, they are given to the local
presswala or presswali as the case may be. Even here the main backbreaking work
is done by the presswali though we may often see the heartening sight of both
sharing the load!
Why is it that when women have been given equal education as
men, and work shoulder to shoulder with them, earning as much, or in some cases,
even more than them, the laundry load is entirely their responsibility while
the Lord and so called master busies himself with his latest mobile or
something of equally earth-shattering importance on television or in the newspaper?
Sometimes it’s not the poor bloke’s fault entirely-his
better half wants to prove (nobody cares really!) that she can do it all-he’s a
poor sod who is no good at anything around the house and is sure to make a mess
of this simple task of putting the clothes in, the washing powder in the
required compartments and switching on the machine at the right settings.
This entire charade does not go unnoticed by the young tykes
in the house. Like sponges they absorb each nuance of the unsaid, unspoken
charade being played out daily for their consumption! They see, they know, they
feel! So without a single word being
spoken, they have fully digested for future consumption that girls and only
girls can/take care of the laundry. Period. This picture stays with them till
they grow up, have their own house and start playing out the charade they have
absorbed in their growing years.
This situation has to end and a new phase of actual life
partnership has to start. Men have to move forward, break the barriers of their
childhood and the women too have to give them space-let them mess it up a few
times, praise them lots and see the transformation- what a wonderful world we
will have where we understand the load each is bearing and become a part of
sharing that load.
“I am joining the Ariel #ShareTheLoad campaign at BlogAdda and blogging about the prejudice related to household chores being passed on to the next generation.”
