It’s another episode of the Ladies of Hive weekly contest, and I would like to answer the second question, which is this:
Household responsibilities and care: In many homes, partner/spouse statistics reveal that the woman continues with cleaning, childcare, assisting aged relatives, and shopping for the home, with the partner/spouse happy to share finances. All except the last-mentioned category run "50%-and-above," where women tend to remain homemakers. How are things structured in your home?
Gone are the days when it was the responsibility of a man to feed the family while the woman took care of the home, the children, and made sure everything was going well at home, and this was running smoothly then, at least with what I heard from my grandmother and parents.
It was so easy for the man to go out to look for something to do, whether it was farming or something else, to make sure there was food on the table.
In today’s world, it has changed, especially with the nation’s economy, because a source of income isn’t enough to feed the family, so the woman, too, works to support the house.
I won’t be moving deep into that, but I want to share how things were structured in my home, where I grew up, and how things went smoothly. I grew up with average parents who hustled to cater for us, too.
My Dad had a good job back then, while my mom was also working as a trader with her shop located very far from the house. Both of them worked to feed the home, but mainly, my dad was always putting money down for most of what we needed.
There were no joint savings, but I believed it was something my dad understood, that it was his responsibility to do that, even though his wife had a shop where she sold provisions and had other sources of income.
But when Dad had no job anymore, it was easy for Mom to continue taking up the responsibilities with the understanding that things were that way.
And the home went fine with no one fighting over who is dropping money today and who is taking over the next day. In fact, I would say she tried her best, and she never got offended because Dad lost his job, and she was grateful to have something to do to help the home.
That was how I grew to understand how the home was structured, where there was no joint savings, but where both of them ran the home effectively.
Both my parents took time to take care of us, too. He never left the whole responsibilities on his wife, as he also helped her in many ways. Many times, Dad would cook for us while Mom was still in the shop, and when she returned, there was food waiting for her. Even to the extent of Dad sweeping and taking care of the house when he’s around.
I watched my dad, how he would sit at mom’s shop, supporting her business when he was back early from work, and the whole thing wasn’t stressful for any of them.
Most times, mom would even plead for dad to help her do some stuff in the house while she ran to attend to other things at the shop, and dad wouldn’t hesitate to help.
One reason he is a good cook till now. The first time I tasted his meal, I was overwhelmed, and that was because he never saw cooking for us as a thing meant for the woman at home. And that was how everything went fine in the house, and we enjoyed every moment.
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