MY TAKE

OUR IDEAS ABOUT “MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE” HAVE CHANGED. ABOUT TIME.

Men are taking on more indoor chores, but the household gender gap remains. Image credit: MART PRODUCTIONS on Pexels.

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

I was raised in a home where the male members pitched in with chores around the house.

They weren’t forced into doing so, it came to them naturally, as a matter of course.

Well, okay, to one of them.

My naval officer father was great with building bookshelves and tables, etc.. From scratch. And there were few gadgets he couldn’t fix. But he wasn’t only about chores or tasks that were deemed “manly”.

He enjoyed cooking and would whip up amazing dishes for us. Rich, nourishing soups, salads which incorporated fruits and nuts – uncommon in that time and place where kachumbar was the only salad most were familiar with – puddings, along with various other dishes. His jackfruit curry was much requested by friends.

He helped with homework and on days before school exams, would wake me up early with a cup of tea. And then sit nearby, while I did a last-minute revision.

He took me shopping for my first pair of high heels, for my first lipstick, and persuaded my mother that my request for a sleeveless blouse wasn’t the end of the world.

I took all this for granted – weren’t all dads like this?

On the other hand, my brother had to be cajoled/bullied into cleaning his room or helping with the dishes if the househelp was MIA. But he was a kid, and as he grew, watching our father, he absorbed a valuable life lesson – household chores do not diminish a man.

I am married to a man who helps me with chores. More than his fair share, to be honest.

But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? That there’s no strict division? No dividing line between what men and women do around the house?

Our sons were raised on the same principle.

There’s a story I like to share about the time my husband and sons got into the mood for baking a cake for me. Mission accomplished, they presented their “man-made cake” with some fanfare. It was delicious. And contrary to what comic strips around the theme of men in the kitchen would have you believe about a giant mess, they had left a pristine space.

And yet, I will admit to being surprised when I read about the dad who cooks in Sonya Singh’s The Fake Matchmaker (review in April issue of Desi News). Why? Because such men are still thin on the ground. A rare breed, if you will.

We may have moved – a little – past the age when women would proudly declare that their husbands didn’t get even a glass of water for themselves, but the entrenched attitudes and thinking remain more or less in place.

I do see more young men out grocery shopping with their kids – sans wife. But then I also continue to see women pushing a stroller, sometimes with a dog on a leash, while the man walks ahead, phone in hand.

Extended family members and friends expressed happiness at our son getting six months’ paternity leave. While several talked of the “generous” time off, they couldn’t keep their astonishment at bay. Looking after a baby was the mom’s job, no? What was a dad going to do that he needed so much time off?

And I was reminded of the time when this son was born. We were in the elevator with a little boy, our older son’s friend. He looked at my husband and looked away. Looked again and looked away. I had to ask what was going on.

“Why is uncle carrying the baby?” he asked in a stage whisper.

This five-year-old also had a baby in their home – his mother had recently given birth to a girl. But he had not seen his dad carrying the baby.

We lost touch with the family when we moved to Canada but over the years, at times like this, I think of them and wonder what sort of a dad that little boy grew up to be. Does he carry his child?

Or is that not his “department” as I’ve heard some men claim?

A cousin visiting us from India once took me to task for asking one of our sons to bring ice-cream up from the freezer in the basement. It wasn’t the flavour everyone wanted that evening, and I had sent him down again. To be fair, he was chastising me for what he saw as exploiting child labour – sending a kid up and down, twice – not specifically aimed at boys’ roles. But it quickly devolved into that. “Children these days don’t do all this,” he intoned. “Specially not boys.”

I informed him – rather too forcefully, as my husband pointed out to me later – that I had not raised sons who would fuss over getting us ice-cream.

Most people don’t, not intentionally, and not in this day and age. Hopefully.

But children absorb through osmosis. Boys learn that there are certain tasks that are beneath them, that are not manly. And girls learn the same, that it’s their lot to serve the men.

That exhausted after a day’s work, they are the ones who have to make dinner and change diapers, while the men get to catch up with world news over a cup of tea.

Girls who will not get to sit back and enjoy the best cakes ever. Made by the men in their families.

Happy Father’s Day!