Family – the relaxed housekeeper

A Lazy Day

So long Ma, and thanks for all the fish! No cooking tonight – there’s lots of food in the fridge.

Home Organization | How To Be A Relaxed Housekeeper

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 11 – Better work-flow management in the kitchen reduced the number of dishes used when cooking. And she learned two important things that many of her friends didn’t yet know, or rather, didn’t completely have the skills to implement.

Bedtime Stories | Silver Line

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 10 – It was a childhood very different from families where motherhood is about complex meals and women are stuck in the kitchen with heavy cleaning after dinner. Or those where gender roles might keep men away from they joys of hand-on parenting and childcare. Or times like the current time, when the tremendous busy, the long working hours, and long commutes eat into family time and leave children lonely.

The Mother Wound | This Gift

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 5 – And because of the glorification of the mother that was so much a part of her family culture, she would feel deep guilt and self-recrimination. She would forget that being a mother doesn’t raise one to God-like perfection and take away one’s humanity – one’s fallibility.

Meet Microwave Madam’s Husband | The Keeper

Exploring Patriarchy Chapter 4 – MM’s husband was a forward thinking man who lacked the skills needed to make his ideas on equality a daily reality. Two things in particular that made housework and endless task for MM with no weekly off – food habits and disorganization.

Reaching For Help | Five Years a Victim

Fire Fighting Mode Chapter 3 – The sins of the mother come down to her son, but how long should we blame her for what he’s become? One year of marriage – a journey together, a year during which we learn more about each other.

Gender Roles | The Bottom of the Barrel

Fire Fighting Mode Chapter 2 – She’s like the bottom of the pot where the spoon scrapes when there’s not enough inside to put on our plates. Like the bottom of the barrel that bears the pressure when it’s filled to the brim. With no ease or leisure.

When Chores Take Over | She’s got OCD

Fire Fighting Mode Chapter 1 – She’s got OCD – it keeps her safe, the world will end if the tendli is cut round, not straight.

This Busy

Becoming Microwave Madam Chapter 6 – 9 to 5 equals 7, on days that are busy they’re home after eleven. Both of them work and their schedule’s real tight,
it’s what they expected but this busy isn’t right.

Juggling Roles

Becoming Microwave Madam Chapter 5 – It would take her years to learn to be efficient at cooking, cleaning and organization, because doing this meant discarding old ideas and traditions. Fixations on they way things had to be done that come down from generation to generation in Indian families and are so much a part of customs and traditions that one needs to really be pushed against a wall to question them.