Household chores are the number one thing that couples with children fight about, according to a survey I read recently. Indeed, in today’s society where gender roles have become largely undefined, it’s up to each couple to figure out the division of labor. Will you cook while your husband cleans, or vice versa? Who will do, fold and put away the laundry? How about the bills, the grocery shopping, the light bulb that needs changing?
You may have read Lisa Belkin’s New York Times article over the summer about couples who do everything equally. They "work equal hours, spend equal time with their children, take equal responsibility for their home.” This small group of people understand “that this would mean recalibrating their career ambitions, and probably their income, but what they gained, they believed, would be more valuable than what they lost.”
I read the article with avid interest, and then thought of whether I actually know any desi couples who practice “equally shared parenting.” You already know my answer, don't you?
The vast majority of Devis with babies still take on most of the housework. We usually cook and clean more, spend more time with our kids than our husbands do, and have more responsibilities around the home. Even if our husbands share the household tasks, we are still the proactive ones who know when the laundry needs to get done, what the diaper bag needs to be packed with, what’s for dinner. At parties, we're usually the ones in the kitchen, setting out the plates and making sure the food is warm. I also realized that among most of the desi couples I know, the husband/father spends more time working. So it could be argued that both female and male roles among second-generation desis are more traditional. Either way, we usually get stuck with the mundane daily tasks.
This may be an obvious observation, but it interests me nonetheless. What is it about us Devis that makes us more prone to embrace traditional gender roles? Is it because our parents were more traditional, and we’re just once removed from the homeland? As far as I know, we didn’t know when we got married, or had kids, that it would inevitably be this way. Many of us planned for it not to be so.
Also, it doesn't come easily: most of us go through periods of figuring it all out (a.k.a. fighting), and then arrive at some imperfect yet livable situation for awhile, until we get sick of it and try to find a better solution again. A friend of mine jokingly told me that while her husband uses porn to get off, all she needs is a house that he helped her clean to get her in the mood.
Why, all these years after women's lib and migrating from the homeland, are we still stuck with the housework? And, perhaps as a more productive discussion, what works and doesn't work with the division of labor in your home?
.jpg)
Deepa is a wife, mother, writer and she sometimes masquerades as a lawyer as well. She revels in friendship, humor, champagne, and laughing at herself--often. She never ever reads US Magazine, thinks Rushdie is a genius, wishes she could write one sentence as funny as "Arrested Development," and lives in the Bay Area with her motley crew. She can be reached at deviswithbabies@gmail.com