‘Women’s Day’ of a housewife

Yesterday was International Women’s Day!

“YIPPEE!!!” Some of you might have said. She said “oh no!” Oh, don’t get her wrong. She admires Women’s Day… She had adored it at some point of her life. But now, after a decade of marriage- it seems like any other day. IT WAS JUST PLAIN ROUTINE. She said ‘oh no’ because she had to do routine work. There was nothing special about this day.

As usual, she got up. Dressed up her kids…. followed by innumerable chores- which do add value to daily living but it is not valued. You ask her ‘why?’ Oh she is a Stay At Home Mum (SAHM) and you are right she doesn’t work at all in monetary terms.

‘Hmmm’… You say. Hey she didn’t apply for this full time role when she got married.

Ok coming back to reality, she has to plan her everyday very well. She can’t miss to forget any ‘essential items.’ She cannot forget coconut nor salt or else she got to cook without them (which leads to inventing new food dishes 🙂 ) or grab something from out or be hangry (hungry+ angry). And she cannot complain about it.

Even when she is not feeling well, she needs to get up and lead a normal life. Because, housewives cannot take rest. She sometimes feels like sleeping in, but that’s a luxury…long forgotten. She got to show up no matter how she feels, or how late she has slept the previous night finishing the household work. And yes she needs to do all her domestic chores by the end of the day (yes, you are right her husband might have ignored the tasks royally and it’s ok).

So, her Women’s Day is over as any other usual day doing never-ending domestic work, but they say ‘she can rest/ is free all the day.’ She humbly requests ‘those people’ to please accompany her for 8 days and see for themselves that housework  is a planned, multi-tasking yet unnoticeable(because one can only notice it, if the house work is not done 🙂) job in the whole wide world and there are no holidays and it is unpaid and yes, its 24*7. AND ONE CANNOT RESIGN!

P.S. I will write about working woman’s day some other time 🙂

Shilpa Naik (c) 2018