I was down for two weeks : not because of the flu or anything chronic, but inflamed eyes . One week the virus attacked my left eyes, another for the right one. Though red and watery, my eyes are not really sore except that it is very contagious and scare some superstitous people who believe they will be infected by looking at the sore eyes.
To stay home for two weeks -- for a person like me-- with one sore eye is realy killing me. I can't go out, coz my infected eye was contagious. I could only bear talking on the phone for an hour for the next my ears were irritated by the headset and I would be running of topic. The Tv without cable network is nothing more than a hopeless device offering tedious sinetrons or local cheap gossips ranging about celebrity's divorce, scandal, drugs use. It seems that the wifi internet connection shared in my neighbourhood was not very friendly lately as the administrator was nowhere to be found.
I could just sit down nicely and read my books I bought from several months ago book exhibition. Then I thought lingering with my kids would be a fantastic idea of a working mom who barely had time to do so. It turned out that they do not seem to need my company all the time as it was enough for them to notice that their mother was physically home, not in the office, not out of town --eventhough they did not know that my mind was wandering.
Then I remembered one of my best friend complaining about her life as a full-time home maker:
" You have to work 24 hour, 7 days a week, 12 months a year, for the rest of your life"
" You are the 1st to wake up and start the housechores, and wake everybody up, send your kids to school, do the shopping, cleaning the house, cooking, waiting for the kids to get home from school, preparing lunch and washing the dishes, dragging your days with washing and ironing the clothes, preparing dinner and waiting for your husband to get home , still he expects you wearing the best smile and best clothes and prove that everything runs well under your fingertips . The truth is your days are dragging, the soap dish and detergents are ruining your nails and palm, the ironing chores never end, the tap was leaking, and many things could go wrong in a day, while your husband would give you a weird look as if saying "that's why you're home--to sweat all of those small stuffs, not to complain to me because I got important thing to do in my work."
I had one and half year experience as a full-time and still now think that it's really OK to say
" I am exhausted",
"These housechores are driving me crazy" or
"I need a day off from this housechores", or even to say
" I need to see my friends and hang out with them to keep my sanity"
or even a mother with three children under 5 years-old could say
" Let's hire maids to do the house chores, and let me do other things which require managing things, instead of manual works. And even if I chose to do those housechores, it is because I want to. It would make this world a better place to live when the husband also takes share in the housechores because he wants to, and he thinks it is important to do so"
" I could never juggle with nurturing kids, doing the housechores, and serving my husband without giving consent to my needs of respecting my self and earning self actualization "
" Men manipulate the idea of the nature of a woman by refraining her from working either for the sake of money, career or self actualization because she now has children to take care of , as both parents are responsible to nurture and educate the children"
" The first 5 years of children's age is the golden years : it means it takes both parents to suceed the basic education at home by giving them real role models thus showing them that a dad and a mom walk hand in hand in every sense --including helping each other, sharing the housework.
Hmmm... I think I rest my case.
1 comment:
Hi,
I promised to give my comment on this article of yours, so here it goes.
Frankly speaking, I hear this "housewives'voices" many times--to many, perhaps. My wife did extend her complaints a few times during our marriage life. In fact, she still does now & then :). I took it for granted that it was just her way of saying that she was exhausted, and that once-a-month recreations would heal her. But I was wrong. Picnics did make her feel good, but they just wouldn't do. After going through several arguments (sometimes a big one), I came to a conclusion that being a housewife is not much different from being a worker, in the sense that housewives, too, need to feel that they are appreciated.
So for a start, I posted several notes on every mirror in our house, saying:
My Dear Darling:
Often times I get so insensitive that I don’t always THANK YOU for the things you do.
So for every time it has gone unspoken, this is to let you know that what you do never goes unnoticed and it’s really appreciated.
Thank you.
Love you always
Of course it wasn't the only thing I did. I started helping with more household chores, and giving her more verbal (& non-verbal) cues that the kids & I really appreciate what she does. We still have little fights once in a while, but things are much better than the first few years of our marriage.
My point is, you housewives must try to find an effective way of showing your fatigue to your spouse, coz some men just aren't empathic enough to be able to feel your problems. Push the right button, and you'll have a willingly helpful & appreciative husband.
Don't give up hope. Always look for the silver lining in the clouds.
Post a Comment