Of Swaps And #ShareTheLoad...

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.

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I am taking part in the #ShareTheLoad Challenge with Ariel and Akshara at BlogAdda.

Being The Change, To #ShareTheLoad...

The task is to inculcate the message in the next generation. The message is about breaking the walls of inequality between the genders and sharing the load of life and house chores equally. For years, it has been about the woman of the house owning the responsibility encompassing all responsibilities within the four walls of the house. It has been all rooted in our senses, heart, blood, and mind that a man is not supposed to contribute in house work right since our childhood. That is what we are observing for last generations.

Prevalent thought, men will become women if they do laundry, or cleaning of the house. And those who have guts to defy this thought have had to face taunts within the family, society, office, and where not about performing feminine tasks.

Nobody bothered to break these barriers created around women. On one hand, the load of responsibilities kept weighing in on women. They were allowed to step outside, join office, earn, contribute to family income, work full time; but still the responsibilities inside the house remained with them. They had to manage it on their own without any help from men of the house. And it went on silently. Women never raised a voice against it. Those who dared to, were silenced. Even when kids of the house raised their voice against it they were silenced with a reason that it is what it is supposed to be like.

Probably it had to be absorbed in the minds of those who felt it to be wrong. But for how long? Gradually the demon of inequality had been raised so high to a level that it became difficult to resist the abolition of gender inequality by people on the other side who were favoring this notion rather than opposing it.

Being a teacher, I knew that the easiest way of doing a thing is 'doing' rather than preaching about it and wasting time. I started this chain of inculcating the message from my school, to my students itself. The benefit of starting from school was that at the same time, this thought-provoking message will reach many homes together. Even if it creates and impact in half of those homes, it will mean a lot.

I started teaching my students about why they should not tolerate gender inequality at home and how to overcome it so subtly and positively that the tides are forced to change their direction on their own. The students understood it faster than my male colleagues at school. A number of relevant posters were made by my students to spread the word around. They even started this mission at their respective homes in their own small ways.

These students started sharing their stories in school with me, on how they gradually offloaded this jinx out of their parent's minds. Raghu, my student in Class 7 told me that he helped his mother in washing the utensils last night. Vidya, my student in Class 9 told me how her brother amazed their parents the last evening and forced them to start thinking about breaking all the barriers when her father called her to clean the table and her brother did it despite her father telling him that it is not the job of the boys or men of the house. The impact was invincible when her father declared that now onward the laundry of the house was on him to #ShareTheLoad with her working mother.

So many stories started pouring in day after day. Each one was accompanied by unique and amazing realizations. The ripple was strong enough to reach and impact the male colleagues who also ended up supporting the notion to #ShareTheLoad.

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I am taking part in the #ShareTheLoad Challenge with Ariel and Akshara at BlogAdda. 

Hum Saath Saath Hain For #LaundryGoesOddEven!

Those were the days

I would wake up

well before him

being busy in routine chores

He would feel proud to be

sleeping a couple of hours extra,

feeling fulfilled, satisfied.

Those were the days

He would come from work

Change, Relax, and Watch JukeBox,

while I would come from work

around the same time

Change, Get on the job without a pause

Those were the days

when eating, relaxing, leisure were

part of his share of life

between the two of us

Dusting, Cleaning, Washing, Cooking

were part of mine.

But one fine day he changed all of a sudden without any reason, without anything reasonably alarming happening around. I probed but all in vain. I finally asked him what was the reason of such a drastic change in him and he came back with a story. Few days back he was tired at work though there was no work pressure as such, and he thought to relax under a tree on the way home. He stopped the car near Lodhi Garden and sat inside the garden under a tree. 

The cool wind blowing and sitting right under the shade of that dense tree opened his inner eyes as he had a strange feeling inside. He felt about this huge difference in our lives. Why everything to be done is my job, and why everything to be consumed is his, was the cluster of thoughts dwindling in his mind.

There was a paradigm shift in his mindset, and in our life in parallel. He decided to share every job at home with me in all chores with no gender bias. He removed the label from all chores at home and started offloading them from my shoulders thereupon. 

He felt that when I am as busy as him and as much on the move, then why he should expect me to shoulder complete responsibility of the household. On top of it a bit of guilt that arose in his mind was because I never complained, or asked him to share, by contributing his efforts in the work rather than sitting, relaxing, sipping coffee, reading newspaper, watching TV, or listening to music.

That is when it is not only #LaundryGoesOddEven in our happily-turned-happy home but a lot more beyond that. He has been able to change everybody's mindset at home by becoming a load-sharer, work-contributor, and change-maker at home. The earlier thought of everybody's clothes turning out as good as new only when I, the woman of the house, wash them, has changed. 

He brought the new Ariel Matic 'Share the Load' pack ensuring that the stains vanish and our everyday best is at its gleaming best, no matter who does the laundry. In fact, at time, he offers to take the load even when it is my turn as per the Odd-Even calendar that came along with the Ariel Matic pack. The calendar ascertains the laundry days split right down the middle between him and me! The whole journey of our life has transformed from just 'Biwi ka kamaal' to 'Miyan-Biwi ka kamaal'. 

I must thank Ariel Matic and its #LaundryGoesOddEven that has brought a sea-change at our home. Splitting chores and household duties has not only reduced the time taken to do them but has also increased a substantial amount of quality time we get to spend with each other. That in turn has resulted in content family members, strengthened relationships and a happy home. 

We have reached a purely Win-Win situation. The life has got much easier when he started sharing 'my' load. My load has become 'our' load. The gender inequality is now eliminated in my family and gradually in extended family too. Not only that, the impact has started going to our friend's families too. So from one household the impact has not gone to many households at our end. 

~~~ 

I am taking part in the #LaundryGoesOddEven Challenge by Ariel India at BlogAdda