The New Generation Homemaker

The days of living in palatial bungalows, with a dozen servants doing the household chores is of no much relevance today. In other words, it is too much a luxury that anyone can afford.  Today people prefer to small houses and manage all the household chores all by themselves.

Why? The simple reason is that, you don’t find servant maids to work on your terms anymore. These types of workers are slowly vanishing and it is high time, all of us wake up to the reality.

Look at the advanced countries. Do you find servant maids? No! .  The housework is done by the inmates of the family itself. They use vacuum cleaners to clean the house and washing machines to wash their clothes.

Let me share a real life observation. When I was a team member of the Rotary GSE to Finland, I was staying as a guest in one of the Rotarians house in a town called Rovaniemi. This Rotarian is a well to do businessman in that town. He has a big beautiful house. His wife is a home maker and they have two small sons.

On a Sunday morning, as I woke up and was spending some time with their kids, I saw the there was another lady in the house, who was working along with the Rotarian’s wife. They were cleaning up the house, changing linens and doing a multitude of household tasks. It was a marathon work of over two hours. At the end of all tidying up, they both sat together in the dining table and had their breakfast together. I guessed, it was one of her relatives.

After some time the Rotarian’s wife, introduced me to her by her name and said she has come to assist her with household work. I did not get a clue. I gently asked her, whether she was her relative. She replied again, that she had come to assist her. I thought she did not understand my question and left it there.

After sometime, the strange visitor left the house in her nice new car.  The Rotarian’s wife, then came up to me and told, “Actually, she is our servant maid. But you see, people here don’t like to be called servant maid, and that is why I told you that she had come to assist me”.

I was in for a cultural shock. The house owner and the servant maid, having breakfast together!. Is this OK with you? If you are not, be ready for it.  Whatever happened in the Western countries a decade back is happening in India, today and surely this too is bound to happen.

There is another choice. Get into automating your household, as much you automated your office or your factory. These are the days of washing machines, vacuum cleaners, microwaves ovens, motorized wet grinders and dishwashers.

Well, most of the city dwellers have got into this lifestyle. People living in small towns, still prefer the comfort of servant maids to do these odd tasks. I have heard people saying, the rice batter for making Idli is softer only when hand ground; the dirt in the shirt collars go away only with hand washing; the dirt in the wall corners, does not come away in the vaccum cleaner; microwave is only good for heating, it is not good for cooking; the dish washer is not good to clean Indian style stainless steel utensils.  But the sad part is nothing can be done about it. We need to accept the limitations of this and look at the convenience factor, which becomes more essential today.

Also practice the habit of doing small things by yourself, rather than depend on a servant for each and everything. To start with, teach your children to clear up the mess they created. Ask your children to clean their food plates, before and after a meal. These small habit formations will go a long way in helping them in the future.

Well, it is entirely your choice - a choice of convenience over convention. Well, it is better to accept it by choice rather than having to forcefully adapt to this lifestyle, in a later stage.

 

    D. Senthil Kannan,

   Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com