As India is suffering through the second wave of Covid, most of the professionals are working from home. In many ways, we have become more independent and innovative when it comes to surviving without stepping out or maids and other household help.
But even today, women are taking care of most of the household work. They are doing it along with managing their work, kid’s studies, and many more things. The men of the family are definitely helping out and being supportive but still, the perfect balance of responsibilities has not been struck. The mental load is still uneven and that’s worrying.
This one tweet is the perfect example of a woman’s involvement as compared to a man.
We did some digging to find out why this happens. Why do women end up taking the majority of household work, why do they consider it’s their responsibility?
It seems like the answer is in sociology. According to a Ph.D. candidate in sociology and social policy at Harvard University, the mental load can be broken down into four parts: anticipate, identify, decide, monitor.
Let’s take an example of choosing the perfect preschool for you kid.
Anticipate –
Feeling the need of enrolling your kid into a preschool. You think of the future and decide what needs to be done.
Identify –
Searching and coming up with the best preschools around your area. Finding out the pros and cons, finding out options.
Decide –
Narrowing down and shortlisting one preschool.
Monitor –
Following up with the procedure of actually taking care of the admission process and things related to the admission like money, uniform, school bus or any other mode of transport, etc.
But in today’s era where women are educating, working for themselves, these traditional roles should change accordingly. So, what can be concluded with this interesting finding?
Women should not be playing the role of a super woman and asking for help whenever it’s necessary. And men should be willing to ask and initiate tasks at home the same way they do it for their professional world!
These are difficult times, if we find more ways to keep our mental stability by cooperating and helping each other, we will come out of it strongly as a family!