This longer-than-usual piece had my undivided attention right until the end. Every word is heartbreakingly true and utterly relatable, despite all the privilege, despite all the modernity, despite all the discourse on parity. A wonderfully poignant and pertinent piece, as always.
This is eye-opening. As a male, this never had come to my mind before reading this piece. I'm a bachelor who prides on taking care of the house very well (I stay with a friend). I could relate to some of the stuff annotated in the stories. My view after reading this article is that the problem gets compounded for women in 2 ways:
(1) expectations that society and in a lot of cases the women themselves have about being an "ideal" mother & working woman & homemaker. Men do get praised for doing the bare minimum, I myself experience it quite frequently.
(2) super unfair distribution of household work responsibilities between men and women.
That being said, I'm curious to know what happens when women say no to a few things, steadfastly? I'm going to emulate Mahima and ask for stories from women that I know but would be super glad to get any replies to my comment :)
Oct 3, 2023·edited Oct 3, 2023Liked by Mahima Vashisht
Thanks so much for writing this. Had to be said. For a while I haven't read the morning routines of anyone who doesn't have kids to bathe, cook for and send to school. I'm super triggered by these gurus (mostly white, middle-aged men) whos morning routines seem to have calm and zen, meditation, air, sunlight and all those things. The most sunlight I get in the morning is when I'm walking my kid to his school bus stop, answering a million questions he has, chiding him to bring the correct books back home to do homework.
Productivity bros are missing one very important point which is that we don't own time. It's a reality not a resource, and we can never ever control it. We can only pretend that we do
So true and so well written. Oh and you haven't even started on the daily upheaval that hormonal changes wreak on the female body and mind. :) have shared with everyone in my family- both the caring men and the working women.
I loved this piece. I don't have a kid, thus don't face most of the issues that were written here. But it made me wonder how frustrating it must be for women to constantly balance work and home while also maintaining their mental health. I doubt if I would ever be able to do it someday.
This piece had me pumping my fist right along with it the whole way. Thank you for writing it, and for the recommendation of the SECOND Mason Currey book -- I'm intrigued!
Hard Hitting! The morning routines reminded me of scenes from the brilliant movie 'The Great Indian Kitchen' - husband and father in law are having their zen moment reading paper or practicing pranayama/yoga while women of the house are struggling to put food on the table! At recent Ganesh puja celebrations in my apartment, I realized that for every person participating in the cultural activities, the spouse is always missing. Rare case of women participating, the husband is at home with kids. Problem with all the videos and self-help books is that they have documented cases where the hacks work, but don't list out cases/situations/people for whom it won't work. Washing machine/Dishwasher solves the mechanical part of the job but it won't solve the mental/physical task of loading/unloading vessels or folding of dried clothes. So one might have outsourced one part of the work, but you are now in another work while mentally thinking of when you have to step back to pick up from the machine.
This longer-than-usual piece had my undivided attention right until the end. Every word is heartbreakingly true and utterly relatable, despite all the privilege, despite all the modernity, despite all the discourse on parity. A wonderfully poignant and pertinent piece, as always.
This is eye-opening. As a male, this never had come to my mind before reading this piece. I'm a bachelor who prides on taking care of the house very well (I stay with a friend). I could relate to some of the stuff annotated in the stories. My view after reading this article is that the problem gets compounded for women in 2 ways:
(1) expectations that society and in a lot of cases the women themselves have about being an "ideal" mother & working woman & homemaker. Men do get praised for doing the bare minimum, I myself experience it quite frequently.
(2) super unfair distribution of household work responsibilities between men and women.
That being said, I'm curious to know what happens when women say no to a few things, steadfastly? I'm going to emulate Mahima and ask for stories from women that I know but would be super glad to get any replies to my comment :)
Thanks so much for writing this. Had to be said. For a while I haven't read the morning routines of anyone who doesn't have kids to bathe, cook for and send to school. I'm super triggered by these gurus (mostly white, middle-aged men) whos morning routines seem to have calm and zen, meditation, air, sunlight and all those things. The most sunlight I get in the morning is when I'm walking my kid to his school bus stop, answering a million questions he has, chiding him to bring the correct books back home to do homework.
Productivity bros are missing one very important point which is that we don't own time. It's a reality not a resource, and we can never ever control it. We can only pretend that we do
A wise aunt told me - There will be a To Do list even when you are kicking the bucket. So relax.
This essay should be the captcha page for every piece of productivity-hack-content on the internet.
(I'm sorry I compared Womaning to captcha but I hope you know what I mean!)
Amazing article! Sad state of affairs :(
Big bow to all the momys who are trying to keep afloat..
One of my friends use the term "mombies" - mommys who turned zombies to get their revenge bed time procrastination
So true and so well written. Oh and you haven't even started on the daily upheaval that hormonal changes wreak on the female body and mind. :) have shared with everyone in my family- both the caring men and the working women.
I loved this piece. I don't have a kid, thus don't face most of the issues that were written here. But it made me wonder how frustrating it must be for women to constantly balance work and home while also maintaining their mental health. I doubt if I would ever be able to do it someday.
This piece had me pumping my fist right along with it the whole way. Thank you for writing it, and for the recommendation of the SECOND Mason Currey book -- I'm intrigued!
Hard Hitting! The morning routines reminded me of scenes from the brilliant movie 'The Great Indian Kitchen' - husband and father in law are having their zen moment reading paper or practicing pranayama/yoga while women of the house are struggling to put food on the table! At recent Ganesh puja celebrations in my apartment, I realized that for every person participating in the cultural activities, the spouse is always missing. Rare case of women participating, the husband is at home with kids. Problem with all the videos and self-help books is that they have documented cases where the hacks work, but don't list out cases/situations/people for whom it won't work. Washing machine/Dishwasher solves the mechanical part of the job but it won't solve the mental/physical task of loading/unloading vessels or folding of dried clothes. So one might have outsourced one part of the work, but you are now in another work while mentally thinking of when you have to step back to pick up from the machine.
This post gave me a déjà vu feeling.
beautiful.. nicely penned !
Absolutely astoundingly true!