Student life is full of curiosity. I too have been so, throughout my journey so far. Probably, this factor brought me to the Engineering stream where I am at the verge of completing my journey and stepping into the professional world to start a new journey. When I was too young I used to feel a lot for my mother who was a teacher by profession. She would wake up early in the morning, finish house chores, get ready, and rush to her school. On the way she would be planning so many things that she had to do after reaching home later in the day. On her way back she would again be recapitulating her agenda of the rest of the day, giving her plan a better shape putting timelines to each of her tasks in the agenda. I am sure her plans never reached completion as per the stipulated timelines because by the time she would reach home, there would be ten more unannounced, unarmed and unanticipated tasks waiting to be added in her task-list.
#ShareTheLoad was not even in the air during those days in my family or society. Rather it was completely opposite. Men who would share the load of house chores with their wives would be criticized and mocked for performing the tasks that are meant only for women. Such was the gap between the genders as far as the home chores were concerned. And it was so wide that nobody would dare to fill this gap in such a biased atmosphere around. When I reached my secondary level studies I started feeling strongly about it. I decided to revolt against the system. After all, it was important to light a candle at home before making an effort to bring light to the society.
It was fairly easy to take my brother in confidence. We decided to collaborate to bring a change at home in a big way. The plan was to change our father's mindset to break the barriers of inequality at home. We convinced Dad to swap places with Mom for two days and he agreed quite easily thinking her life would be fun for him. He used to boast a lot about how loaded he used to be at office and how his boss relied so much on him for all important tasks. He had an impression that Mom was not as loaded as him in spite of observing her doing all chores related to the house, each day. But those two days were more than enough for him to realize that his boasting about a loaded office was actually a fact at home too. He, and in fact, the whole family was completely reliant on Mom for every small or big thing at home. That day onward, Dad promised to bring a big change at home and #ShareTheLoad with Mom in every house chore. There’s been no looking back, ever since.
#ShareTheLoad was not even in the air during those days in my family or society. Rather it was completely opposite. Men who would share the load of house chores with their wives would be criticized and mocked for performing the tasks that are meant only for women. Such was the gap between the genders as far as the home chores were concerned. And it was so wide that nobody would dare to fill this gap in such a biased atmosphere around. When I reached my secondary level studies I started feeling strongly about it. I decided to revolt against the system. After all, it was important to light a candle at home before making an effort to bring light to the society.
It was fairly easy to take my brother in confidence. We decided to collaborate to bring a change at home in a big way. The plan was to change our father's mindset to break the barriers of inequality at home. We convinced Dad to swap places with Mom for two days and he agreed quite easily thinking her life would be fun for him. He used to boast a lot about how loaded he used to be at office and how his boss relied so much on him for all important tasks. He had an impression that Mom was not as loaded as him in spite of observing her doing all chores related to the house, each day. But those two days were more than enough for him to realize that his boasting about a loaded office was actually a fact at home too. He, and in fact, the whole family was completely reliant on Mom for every small or big thing at home. That day onward, Dad promised to bring a big change at home and #ShareTheLoad with Mom in every house chore. There’s been no looking back, ever since.
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