Career - the most important idea for most of us today. How important? Well, the answer is evident from the price we're willing to pay or wont even realize what we have already paid for it. Career is the aggregation of the job(s) we served in our lifetime. Jobs are vivid, spanning across a myriad of options around the human life. Some aspire to be an engineer , some others aspire to be doctors, still some others aspire to be pilots and the list is almost endless.
One among these is homemaker (hm). Homemaker is mainly an American term and means " a person, especially a woman, who works at home and takes care of the house and family". It can certainly be debated whether hm is a job or not. Let us for the sake of this perspective assume it to be a job. hm is a job that spans 24x7x365 or more realistically each moment of the year. There are no fixed hours of work, no holidays, no awards, but there are certainly "rewards" that are beyond comparison.
Why be a hm? there has to be some solid reason why one should sacrifice the career and take up the career of a successful home maker. Indeed, there are certainly sufficient reasons and rewards unique to the choice of being a hm. hm is probably the most challenging and 'not for all' role in life. A hm needs to be an independent thinker to make the smallest and the biggest decisions for the family. A hm ought to have boundless reserves of compassion, love, tolerance and energy to take on this most challenging role. A hm provides the bonding for a family - the fabric of love, affection and care towards the other members of the family. Each held closely together via this fabric. A hm is one who makes a home out of a house - does cleaning, laundry, clearing up the mess created every now and then and stuff like this. A hm is one who's there for the children of the family when they take their first step in life - to hold their finger and guide them on to the road of life - to support them when they stumble and to be with them when they need the parents most. A hm manages the budget of the home through the good and the bad times with the same efficiency. A hm makes the home a "heaven" where each member feels secure in their own cosy space. These are just few from a long list.
"Big Deal! I can manage all this and a full time career too. There are plenty of working couples who have a successful career and a good family." resonates a voice from the professional crowd. She is Maya (fictious), a dear friend of mine. Maya is doing outstandingly well in her career as S/W professional in an MNC. "With some help from the spouse both the parents can each have a professional career and still have a great family. All it takes is mutual understanding and help. Besides what will the hm do for the whole day sitting at home? One ought to have a life outside the four walls of the house. It adds to one's perspective towards life and also augments the financial support for the family. Why should someone be only a home maker at all?" Maya continues...
And I am certainly led into the thought lanes - aren't you under-estimating the role of a hm? Can you be a Hm in just an hour of yours time? Assuming a twelve hours work day, which includes the nine hours office-time and three hours commute time each day, one is left with only twelve hours outside the office. What's a typical itenary for these non-office twelve hours? Eight hours of sleep, so one's left with only four. An hour of unwinding, after the day's work, leaves the available hours to three, of which, you can't use all the three hours for the hm. Well, that certainly is not sufficient, so even the spouse chips in his/her three hours of the day to make it six hours a day. Phew! even that is not anywhere close to the kind of effort it takes to be a hm. But, you'll have all the the resources for your family - a big house, a luxury car and all the comforts of modern day living. Best education, best clothes and amenities money can buy for your children. But is that all a child needs?
During the nascent days a child needs the parents most. They need every possible attnetion and moment of time from parents that could be available to them. A child has no distinction of the "good" and the "bad". This distinction needs to be infused into the child during the nurturing. If in their days of need you don't have the ample time for your children - can you expect them to support you when you grow old and need their support? Add this to it - they grow up looking at you, how in your quest for the career you had little or no time for your parents and you would brood thats "its life". They'll have no reason for second thoughts to them not giving you any time when you need them in your old days.
Any team in the world relies on leveraging the unique skills of each member to address and win the different challenges. Imagine a team of only bowlers - all the best bowlers in same team. and a Team with a good balance of bowlers and batsmen in same team. the chances of the balanced team winning are far more than the specialist bowlers team. Similarly the institution of marriage is a creation of team. where two people come together to form a team to face and win over all the challenges, that life throws at them. If both of them have the same skills - lets say both of them excel in making the finances for the living through the professional achievements - do they make up a balanced team? "Yes, ofcourse! Why not?" questions Maya. Hmmm I'll like to explore this situation in a little more detail. "So Maya, how do you see it working the best?" is my first question. "All that is needed is a mutual understanding between the two spouses. They share the household chores between the two of em equally" answers Maya. Sounds interesting!. Does this mean both take up equal amount of work? How is equal amount of work defined? What's the metric and the yardstick? And if both of em are homemaker at the same time and the professionls at the same time, then, who's the homemaker when they are both at work? Is it none? does this mean or assumes that there're no home-maker need in work hours? I disagree strongly.
It's not a question of right or wrong. Its about making a choice and setting up the expectations right. If having an eventful life in career is all that one aspires for, one shouldn't mind having no-one around in the old days when one needs someone the most. Simply because one wasn't there for anyone when they needed one the most. And for those, who aspire to have someone to bank upon in their hours of need, they ought to be the ones who were there for others, who needed them the most. Yes it DOES NOT GUARANTEE that your dependents would certainly be there when you need em the most, but, it just makes the chances so much more. There ain't any fixed Formula for life and this uncertainty about life is all that makes life so challenging and beautiful at each step.
One among these is homemaker (hm). Homemaker is mainly an American term and means " a person, especially a woman, who works at home and takes care of the house and family". It can certainly be debated whether hm is a job or not. Let us for the sake of this perspective assume it to be a job. hm is a job that spans 24x7x365 or more realistically each moment of the year. There are no fixed hours of work, no holidays, no awards, but there are certainly "rewards" that are beyond comparison.
Why be a hm? there has to be some solid reason why one should sacrifice the career and take up the career of a successful home maker. Indeed, there are certainly sufficient reasons and rewards unique to the choice of being a hm. hm is probably the most challenging and 'not for all' role in life. A hm needs to be an independent thinker to make the smallest and the biggest decisions for the family. A hm ought to have boundless reserves of compassion, love, tolerance and energy to take on this most challenging role. A hm provides the bonding for a family - the fabric of love, affection and care towards the other members of the family. Each held closely together via this fabric. A hm is one who makes a home out of a house - does cleaning, laundry, clearing up the mess created every now and then and stuff like this. A hm is one who's there for the children of the family when they take their first step in life - to hold their finger and guide them on to the road of life - to support them when they stumble and to be with them when they need the parents most. A hm manages the budget of the home through the good and the bad times with the same efficiency. A hm makes the home a "heaven" where each member feels secure in their own cosy space. These are just few from a long list.
"Big Deal! I can manage all this and a full time career too. There are plenty of working couples who have a successful career and a good family." resonates a voice from the professional crowd. She is Maya (fictious), a dear friend of mine. Maya is doing outstandingly well in her career as S/W professional in an MNC. "With some help from the spouse both the parents can each have a professional career and still have a great family. All it takes is mutual understanding and help. Besides what will the hm do for the whole day sitting at home? One ought to have a life outside the four walls of the house. It adds to one's perspective towards life and also augments the financial support for the family. Why should someone be only a home maker at all?" Maya continues...
And I am certainly led into the thought lanes - aren't you under-estimating the role of a hm? Can you be a Hm in just an hour of yours time? Assuming a twelve hours work day, which includes the nine hours office-time and three hours commute time each day, one is left with only twelve hours outside the office. What's a typical itenary for these non-office twelve hours? Eight hours of sleep, so one's left with only four. An hour of unwinding, after the day's work, leaves the available hours to three, of which, you can't use all the three hours for the hm. Well, that certainly is not sufficient, so even the spouse chips in his/her three hours of the day to make it six hours a day. Phew! even that is not anywhere close to the kind of effort it takes to be a hm. But, you'll have all the the resources for your family - a big house, a luxury car and all the comforts of modern day living. Best education, best clothes and amenities money can buy for your children. But is that all a child needs?
During the nascent days a child needs the parents most. They need every possible attnetion and moment of time from parents that could be available to them. A child has no distinction of the "good" and the "bad". This distinction needs to be infused into the child during the nurturing. If in their days of need you don't have the ample time for your children - can you expect them to support you when you grow old and need their support? Add this to it - they grow up looking at you, how in your quest for the career you had little or no time for your parents and you would brood thats "its life". They'll have no reason for second thoughts to them not giving you any time when you need them in your old days.
Any team in the world relies on leveraging the unique skills of each member to address and win the different challenges. Imagine a team of only bowlers - all the best bowlers in same team. and a Team with a good balance of bowlers and batsmen in same team. the chances of the balanced team winning are far more than the specialist bowlers team. Similarly the institution of marriage is a creation of team. where two people come together to form a team to face and win over all the challenges, that life throws at them. If both of them have the same skills - lets say both of them excel in making the finances for the living through the professional achievements - do they make up a balanced team? "Yes, ofcourse! Why not?" questions Maya. Hmmm I'll like to explore this situation in a little more detail. "So Maya, how do you see it working the best?" is my first question. "All that is needed is a mutual understanding between the two spouses. They share the household chores between the two of em equally" answers Maya. Sounds interesting!. Does this mean both take up equal amount of work? How is equal amount of work defined? What's the metric and the yardstick? And if both of em are homemaker at the same time and the professionls at the same time, then, who's the homemaker when they are both at work? Is it none? does this mean or assumes that there're no home-maker need in work hours? I disagree strongly.
It's not a question of right or wrong. Its about making a choice and setting up the expectations right. If having an eventful life in career is all that one aspires for, one shouldn't mind having no-one around in the old days when one needs someone the most. Simply because one wasn't there for anyone when they needed one the most. And for those, who aspire to have someone to bank upon in their hours of need, they ought to be the ones who were there for others, who needed them the most. Yes it DOES NOT GUARANTEE that your dependents would certainly be there when you need em the most, but, it just makes the chances so much more. There ain't any fixed Formula for life and this uncertainty about life is all that makes life so challenging and beautiful at each step.
