Do they really expect nothing in return?
Image courtesy of alicejeans.blogspot.com
We have all heard this line before: ‘Behind every great man, there is a great woman’.
I cannot pinpoint when exactly I started to think of a housewife’s role as demeaning. It may have started in school, where we learned about feminism.
A ‘housewife’, is simply not one of those ambitions you have written down on your ‘My Goals in Life’ list when you are in Grade 5. Instead, we were taught to be strong individuals who aimed for a successful career. We wanted to travel and explore the world. We wanted to give credit to the women who fought so hard to get us out of the home.
Or it may be my years of being a chef. I was constantly surrounded by men. Working in kitchens where there was so much male chauvinism around me, I never pictured myself taking on the role of a housewife.
When we mention the term ‘housewife’ nowadays, the image that is conjured in our heads is all the same. It is of a woman that stays at home. She presides over the household duties. All her man’s needs are met and so are those of her kids.
Housewife is not a term that has changed in meaning over the past few decades. A housewife gets appreciated mainly on Mother’s Day, her birthday, or on her wedding anniversary.
The one role of a housewife that we hardly ever acknowledge is the one where she supports her husband. This is far from just a verbal support. I am not just talking of a Hillary Clinton figure supporting her husband Bill through scandals. I am talking about the women who are away from the limelight.
It is the late nights where she stays up waiting for him to come home. It is their time together that she gives up so that he can work overtime (or spend time with his mates). It is the way she comforts him when he has had a bad day at work. It is all this, and more.
She is his advocate. She wants the best for him. She keeps dinner for him in the fridge (at least there are microwaves these days). She gives up a part of herself for him. She does this with love, understanding and compassion. And last of all, she expects nothing in return.
Is this the real meaning of love, or is this just another job?
I know of women who do all these things and keep resentments burning within themselves. I know of women who do their duties as a housewife, and then bitch about it to their girlfriends. I also know of others who do it willingly because that was just the way they were brought up.
I do not know of many women who do it all, without expecting anything in return.
I have entered a new chapter in my life where I am now taking on that role as being a supportive woman. I find it to be one of the toughest challenges I have ever faced.
It is because this is an ongoing, continuous challenge, every single day. I find myself helping him with work so that I can get time with him tomorrow. I do it for selfish reasons. I do it because I want something back in return. When I do not get it, my emotions take over and I become frustrated. (In other words, if I was a two year-old, it would be the equivalent of a hissy fit in a toy store.)
It is times like these where I have only one person to really turn to – my mother.
My mother was different from other ‘housewives’ in the way that she could never sit still. She always had some kind of project going on. Most of the time she would have more than two going on simultaneously.
Whether it was running a paper recycling factory from our backyard or selling multi-vitamins, she was always on the move. Throughout all this, I do not ever recall a time where my mother was not there when I needed her. She drove us to and fro from school, tuition, swimming classes and piano lessons.
My mother is one of the most supportive wives I know. How she managed to raise three kids; be supportive of all of us and my father as well as become a successful businesswoman, I may never really grasp. I can only hope that she has passed it on to me in her genes.
At the age of 58, my father’s long-life dream of opening a college is about to come true. The reason for this? It’s simple. He has a loving, understanding, and compassionate woman behind him. And she expects nothing in return.
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