“Neha, can’t you hear Ashwin is crying? Why don’t you leave your office work and take care of him first? How can you forget to give medicine to Mummy? You know her BP keeps fluctuating! How could you be so careless? Neha, you have to cancel your business meeting. You need to attend Shikha’s PTA meeting. I won’t be able to make it. I have some important work. How can you go out with your friends, you have the responsibility for this house? Who will take care of kids and mummy papa if you will go on a trip with your friends? Why you cooked Bhaigan Ka Bartha? Papa doesn’t like it. Cook something else for him quickly! I don’t know where is your attention these days! I have to remind you to do small little things about the home again and again.”
Like many Indian women, my friend, Neha is very much used to hearing the above pieces of conversation. It leaves me amazed how many husbands have turned marriage into a recruitment process to hire nannies or educated maids to take care of their family and kids.
Rather than treating their wives as soul mates, these husbands use them for dumping all their domestic responsibilities, especially taking care of their parents and kids.
Though I don’t have any issue in taking care of the elderly and kids, what I have an issue with is how women being treated as a dumping ground for bearing most of the burden of caregiving at the expense of their own happiness.
No wonder why so many educated women in India feel empty and lonely in their marriages. Devoid of respect and care, so many overburdened Indian women are left with broken dreams after marriage. While they struggle with loneliness, stress, and anxiety, their husbands lead a happy and well-balanced life. Soon, these women realize how their marriage is a trap and it is only about their husbands and not for them!
It is heart-breaking how the concept of Indian marriage is built around the comfort of Indian Men. Indian men treat women as someone who could take care of their home, their family, and their kids. While they treat women as maids or nannies, they conveniently forget that they married their wives, not hired them!
Rather than receiving love, care and equality, what women get after marriage is the burden of unpaid work along with a lack of respect and gratitude. Through this letter, I just want to let Indian Men know:
Dear Indian Men, Your Wife Isn’t Your Employee
You have married her, you haven’t hired her! Stop assuming that taking care of kids and family is only part of the wife’s job description. She is there to be part of your family, not to be treated like your employee who has to take care of your kids and parents, all alone. She married to you to be loved; not to serve you and your family!
So, next time when you open your mouth to order her to prioritize you, kids, and parents over her own self; remember she is not there to be treated like a servant.
Rather than supporting her or respecting her individuality, Stop treating her as someone who is there to take orders. She is not inferior to you. She is your equal.
 Dear Indian Men, Your Wife Doesn’t Become Mother Alone, You Also Become Father!
And, while you leave most of your parenting responsibilities over her, do you know fatherhood isn’t just about supporting your kids financially. Fatherhood is about taking care of your kids equally. Stop treating her as if she has become a mother alone. You have become a father too!
Rather than asking what she is doing for you, your kids, or your parents, for once, can you ask what you and your family have done for her. While she struggles to be there for everyone, there is no one for her when she needs them! While she spread affection in everyone’s life, why there is no one to spread in hers! While she stands like a rock with the family, why she finds herself standing alone for herself, her dignity, and her dreams!
