Member-only story
How to get your husband to do the housework
He’s your partner, not your child
In my parents’ traditional marriage, Dad still helped
My parents moved from Bombay to New York City when I was a little girl.
In India, my mother had a support system. She and my father lived with her in-laws. Her parents lived close by. And then there were servants.
In those days, all middle class Indian families had them. We had a servant whose family had worked for ours for generations. His father had worked for my great-grandfather. There was also a cook and a lady who came twice a week for laundry.
Life changed when my parents moved to America.
My father went to work. My mother managed the home.
It was a traditional family but so different than the life my mother grew up with.
What was so interesting though was not that my mother suddenly mopped floors, hung clothes on the line and ironed shirts. What was interesting is that my father helped.
He had never before done any housework. But he understood how hard it was for my mother to do everything with a young child at home. He pitched in.
