The heart of a woman here, translated…
A while ago, my cousin came by for a visit, she’d talked about the caring for the elderly. She’d said, that after she was married, she’d become a housewife, took care of everything big and small in the household, and because her husband works in China, these past few decades, she’d taken on caring for the living of her in-laws, she’d taken this as matter-of-fact more and more by the day. As the in-laws got older, their health conditions declined, and needed assistance on everything in their daily routines, at first, the two sisters-in-law took care of it all, she’d also believed, that it didn’t matter much, if she had to take care of them more, after all, her husband is away during the year, she should, help carry out the filial piety duties for her husband.
And, don’t know if it’s how the tasks got piled too high, or is it because “children become unfitting after the parents stayed ill for a long time”, everybody started losing her/his patience, and there’d been, more and more complaints, in the end, she’d become the one to blame in all of this; not only her eldest brother-in-law, her husband’s sister-in-law, and also the youngest sister-in-law, the in-laws also believed, that she’d only take care of the goings on inside of the household, that she’d not needed to, get too busy like the members of the families that worked outside the homes, did she really, need to, get everybody to chip in? After she learned about everybody’s thoughts, my cousin felt taken, she’d looked at the schedule book in her hand, and, it’d had all the in-law’s check-up times, what to watch out for, what they should be eating for their diets, she’d not known how to show everybody else in the family, that she was, doing HER share to care for them too.
And, does it mean, that she’d become too lackadaisical if she’d not worked outside the home? After she married, her husband only makes it back up two, three times each year, every single household chore, the upbringing of her own young, are left on her shoulders to carry, after taking her kids to school early in the morn, she’d rushed over to the marketplace, to get the groceries for making the meals, after she’d done the laundry loads, she’d needed to take the elders to the hospitals for their checkups. The elders have a lot of physical problems, after her father-in-law got better, her mother-in-law fell ill, and after the internal medical departments, the surgical. After the kids get off from school, she’d needed to get them to cram schools, and in the evenings, she’d needed to watch over them as they’d completed their homework assignments too, she’d worked until the midnight hours, and, before the day breaks the next day, she’d started on her day again. 365 days a year, don’t matter if it’s the weekends or the national holidays, every day is a workday; the working class can get a breather on the weekends and the holidays to sleep in, but she couldn’t.
If there’s a perfect way to resolve the issues of raising her own young and caring for the elderly, maybe, there would be, a lot of people who’d dropped out of working full-time as a housewife, because other than not being economically self-sustainable, working all year long, and, would still get mistreated by the relatives and friends because they only saw what’s on the surface of things. Sometimes, we’d ranted on the thoughts of the housewives, not because we’d not wanted to handle the loads or that we wanted to dodge the responsibilities, but we’re only hoping, that we get some respects that we deserved. Not having a job is not the same as not doing anything, not working doesn’t mean not contributing, don’t the economists all looked with high regards, at the values of the housewives too? Actually, it doesn’t matter if you’re a working class or a stay at home housewife, we’d had equal shares of ups and downs, the important thing is, to walk in each other’s shoes, to respect one another, that way, marriage can last.
And so, because this woman is a stay-at-home housewife, everybody ELSE in the family takes her for granted, and, when she’d not done something, she’d become, unfitting as a daughter-in-law, a mother, or a wife, but, who SAYS, that a stay-at-home housewife is responsible for EVERYTHING? Think about it, if you’re working outside the homes, then, wouldn’t your jobs entail ONLY those items in your areas? But, as housewives, women are handling EVERYTHING, and without the pays or the thank-you, a job well-done…