Dear Indian moms, look after yourself is the slogan of the era. We come across the lives of many Indian housewives who have just crossed their fifties and already look withered and wrecked for a lifetime, diabetic, hypertensive, depressed, waiting their turn to hug the graves whereas, in Europe, it is the age when we see women set out on a voyage to search their own inner self, find a time for themselves and enjoy their retirement life. What culture makes this difference in women’s lives? The answer is within you and your household.
A normal Indian mom, educated or illiterate, employed or unemployed, gets up in the morning, prepares breakfast, lunch, and dinner, washes the kitchen utensils, cleans the home, washes the clothes of the whole household, dries them, and irons them irrespective of her employment status or societal status. Imagine a machine that does all of those chores every day and only sleeps at night for the past twenty years or more. What would be the condition of the machine by now? Can you imagine it even inside a scrap shop? That is how withered your mom has turned out to be, with aches, pain, and arthritic joints if you ever doubt what is wrong with her or why she has been complaining a lot nowadays and how grumpy she has turned out to be lately. Therefore, before yelling at your wife, mother, or daughter for the clothes that are not washed or ironed and for a curry that is a little too spicy, look into yourself, introspect so as to see what have you been doing to make their lives less miserable.
Dear women, times are changing and it is high time that you stop saying that I lost my looks and health for my family and I worked hard for them. This beautiful life is granted to you to live with contentment. Work as a family to achieve common goals, take your time off, enjoy your free time, divide the chores among everyone and live life to the fullest. Look after yourself is the new slogan.
Author Alen Tresa Pious
