Piggybook!

I haven’t waited for any weekend as eagerly as I have for the coming long weekend!  Well, it is an understatement to say “hectic’, but this week has been crazy both at work and on the personal front. Now before I can heave a sigh of relief as the week draws to a close two days early, thanks to Id-ul-Fitr and a second Saturday, it turns out that it may be a working looooong weekend, after all as I have to trudge  through a few legal documents while vacationing in my father’s farm house!:-(  Anyway, another reason I felt over-worked this week is because of my mother-in-laws’ absence at home, making me in charge of the household (read kitchen) responsibilities! This got me thinking about the importance of an all-encompassing domestic support for a working woman today in order to maintain sanity, and this is apart from the housemaid or the help who comes in for a couple of hours for household cleaning and allied chores.  With today’s working woman out of the house for most part of the day, either because of extended working hours or long commute, it’s no secret that we need help for not only child-care, but also cooking and cleaning up thereafter because if I have to fix “Abhay’s favorite panner subzi” for dinner after a long grueling day at court followed by client meetings, it will be like jumping from frying pan to fire! J So we look to support or rather outsource the domestic responsibilities to our parents, in-laws or a full-time hired help. Well, I am grateful to my mother-in-law without whose support my life would have been a mad rush like it has been the whole of this week! Of course, with husbands helping around, it is no longer the “woman’s” sole responsibility, but it is still not the woman who asks “what’s for dinner”, right?:-)

In my hubby’s defense, however, I must say that as I write this post just before leaving to “Shristi”, my father’s farmhouse at Dharmasthala for the long weekend….it is my husband who is winding up the kitchen! J Anyway, I guess as mothers of little boys, it is for us to see to it that gender stereotypes are not perpetuated on the domestic front. Though Abhay has noticed his father help out at the kitchen, its time he starts helping out too. I found a nice little book titled “Piggybook” by Anthony Browne that probably will help me on that count. This one just like other books by Anthony Browne, challenges commonly held beliefs with though-provoking yet comic illustrations. The Piggot family comprising of the mother, father and two boys are a nice little family who live in a nice house, with nice garden and a nice garage. Mrs Piggot does all the household chores from cooking, cleaning, serving, laundry to ironing while having a full-time job on hand. Mr Piggot and the Piggot boys simply order her around and take her for granted. One fine day Mrs. Piggot who has had enough, leaves a note that to her husband and sons that says saying “you are pigs” and walks out. Mr Piggot and the Piggot boys return to an empty house and are annoyed that they have cook and clean themselves. They find it hard to get by without Mrs. Piggot and are seen turning as dirty as pigs for real! Mrs. Piggot then returns, much to relief of the “pigs” but her return is subject to certain conditions - that the boys make their own bed, dad learns to wash the dishes and all of them helped with the cooking and all of them realized that they enjoyed it, after all! So the other day, I asked Abhay to lay the table for dinner, which he no doubt, set out to do willingly but sought to overdo it so much that I regretted asking him!!:-) So if you think you are little ones may be growing into little “pigs” at home……bring home the “Piggybook”!