It would be an understatement to say that a lot has happened since my last post. I went on a Mediterranean cruise, saw the grandeur that was Rome (ah ! the thought of it hurts now, house-bound as I am !), I finally changed roles at work after more than a year of trying, and of course – last but not the least – a little virus overtook the world and upended all our lives.
That last has played out in ways I would have been unable to imagine, in November of 2019. A and I have had to learn home-making skills that we’d not had the slightest interest in, earlier. We had the privilege to spend our free time in various hobbies by outsourcing all of the cooking and cleaning. That is now gone. I haven’t seen my parents for the last 6 months. But the psychological impact has been greater.
First off, given the crowded nature of this country, lockdown and “Stay Home, Save Lives” have meant that the limited interactions with nature that have sustained my weary self in the past have completely disappeared. No more little weekend + 2 days getaway to Hampi, Thekkady or Munnar. Not even a visit to Cubbon Park or Bannerghatta. For a Delhi-ite coming from the culture of “colony parks”, it’s been a silent reminder of how privileged my childhood was.
Secondly, I’ve been reminded again and again about how leisure determines our personalities. I used to be a reasonably enthusiastic quizzer before the lockdown. Now, even for an online quiz – I’ve to think a hundred times – Should I not rather spend this time getting a head start on my office tasks for the week ahead ? Should I complete cleaning that particular spot in the house that I’ve neglected for 4 weeks ? Should I not chop up vegetables and freeze them to save time during the week ? etc. etc.
The final thing that I’ve been forced to confront is how intensely personal, and immediate, the discussions around working women, WFH, share of household labour have suddenly become. With no outside help, the patriarchical structures underpinning so many aspects of the world – Capitalism, Merit, etc. – have been suddenly revealed. While I’m personally lucky in having exceptionally supportive male relatives – A. probably does more housework than me, honestly ! – I have to admit that this is an exception, rather than the norm. Among my friends and colleagues I can see a distinct difference in the way men and women are approaching the extra work at home. While most of the men are genuinely empathetic and are helping out, do they feel, at the core of their hearts, that they are merely “assisting at home” and that the primary responsibility for the house still rests with the women in their lives ? Put in practical terms, do the men actively “lead” and “own” (to use corporate jargon) in the household department ? Do they plan meals for the week ? Do they investigate what groceries need to be bought and time grocery purchases ? Do they plan meals so that the family’s health is kept in mind and wastage is minimized ? The point I’m trying to make is that the primary duty of care (I’m defining “care” to include all types of household management) – of keeping people alive, healthy and environments clean – still falls on women. And in the COVID world, it’s only become worse.
I see this in the most educated, well-off members of society. And this is impacting their work, their personalities – indeed everything they define themselves by.
In a social media group consisting of an “elite” group of professional women, I see countless posts by women about “how to manage household work during the lockdown”, “in-laws are being painful during lockdown”, “have been put on an improvement plan by my company during lockdown”. I doubt if men are facing these issues or thinking about them ? Men, please feel free to correct. And the interesting part is – the women who answer these queries have internalized (despite being some of the smartest, most well-educated women in the country) – that these issues need to be solved by the asker in the first place. While most of the responses are extremely helpful, I have hardly seen a response to these queries on the lines of “Why are you worrying about these things ? Push back, be careless, immerse yourself in work and hobbies ! let the house remain unclean, let the meals not be made, let the inlaws grumble for a while.”
Which brings me – through circuitous routes – to the immediate trigger for this post: a book called “The Invention of Nature”, a biography of the famous early 19th century explorer, Alexander von Humboldt. You might never have heard of him, but that’s only because of the passage of time and the fact that geography and botany are no longer fashionable subjects. The man was a complete genius – an explorer, a scientist, a writer – one of the best products of that type of classical education which is now gone without a trace from this world.
And yet, one of the first things to strike me, in the very first chapter, was this note about his parents and early childhood:
“[Alexander’s and his brother’s] … beloved father died suddenly when Alexander was nine and their mother never showed her sons much affection. Whereas their father had been charming and friendly, their mother was formal, cold and emotionally distant. Instead of maternal warmth, she provided the best education then available in Prussia, arranging for the two boys to be privately tutored by a string of Enlightenment thinkers who instilled in them a love of truth, liberty and knowledge.”
Now, it is extremely difficult to reconstruct the personality of a long-dead woman, that too from (presumably) second hand observations which in turn are 200 years old. However, isn’t there a fighting chance that the poor mother was not a callous, hardhearted creature as the above sentences indicate, but simply a fairly intelligent woman of her time who choose to express her care slightly differently ? To me the single most loving act you can do for a person is to expand their horizons, to teach them, to expose them to the best of learning – and from that point of view it sounds like she wasn’t emotionally distant at all.
The image of a mother as being someone who cares endlessly for physical wants and needs – of someone who manages the home and the child’s physical needs – while the father (or other random male relatives) manage their mental development – is something that is drilled into us from early childhood, and reinforced by peer pressure. I remember (with shame, now) feeling pained as a ten-year-old sometimes, that my mom didn’t have time to make exquisite tiffin boxes for me as a child, before she left for work at 7:30 almost every morning. But I also knew vaguely then – and I know now – that I was glad that she was happy, I was glad that she was able to thrive as an individual herself. (Please note I’m not saying homemakers do not thrive as individuals – it is more the coercion factor I am talking about).
So for heaven’s sake, women of the world: let’s stop all trying to be superwomen whether we like it or not. Let’s give (mental) peace a chance.
rothinzil 