House chores include regular tasks, to maintain a clean and organized home. It can be done on a daily and weekly basis. Common examples include mopping, cooking, dusting and doing laundry, for that one needs to create a chore chart. Cooking and cleaning are a basic life skill, not a gender role.
It’s not a gender role; meaning it’s not only the responsibility of the lady of the house.
The chores can be divided and shared among both genders of the family on a daily or weekly basis. For that purpose, mothers need to train their sons from an early age and also let them know that our Prophet Hazrat Mohammad (PBUH) used to do his own work.
Mothers can start by encouraging their sons to clean their room, help her in setting the table and most importantly help to their sister. Have your daughter and son take turns doing household chores like taking out the trash or washing dishes. Mothers need to teach their sons that “if you do chores, it’s good for you, your mental health and a good living environment”.
If they have seen while growing up that their father is co-operative and helpful in doing household activities and is caring towards their mother, then obviously the son will be helpful in sharing household duties from minimum to maximum, because that is what he will consider to be normal.
We can make a whole generation of men unlearn what they have been wrongly taught by their mothers by changing the mentality of men. If they have already been taught to be helpful to their mother and sisters, they can later share their responsibility in their house and share chores with their wife.
Now-a-days, people are migrating to other countries and thus men’s thinking is changing, and they don’t hesitate in changing diapers, cooking, putting dishes in dishwasher and groceries etc. since all of this is not considered unique over there, rather the west views these as basic life and survival skills – which they are.
However men with a typical Pakistani mindset cannot be changed, no matter how well they are educated they have this engraved in the back of their mind that household chores are entirely a female’s responsibility as they have heard from their grandma or father’s that men are supposed to earn and women must focus on home making as this is an old theory and a common saying, especially in the South-Asian culture.
And secondly, such men have seen their mother’s silently obeying, never objecting to fulfill their responsibility.
Man says that he can’t do household chores as he has never seen the men in his family (father/ brother) working at home in his entire life. But in today’s day and age, this Gen-Z generation and men living aboard don’t feel shy in doing and sharing responsibility.
Another completely comical fact is that even when men actually put in the effort of doing and participating in housework, they are praised for the bare minimum, while women never get praised because it is what is “expected” of them.
In our culture, it is so unfortunate to see men being glorified simply because they ironed their own clothes etc. because “shehzaday bete” should not have to do anything apparently.
But for women? Women are not appreciated even when they clean every inch of the house, because it is simply their “duty”.
In short, mothers of today need to train their son and fathers need to implement and personally participate in chore sharing activities in front of them so that these sons grow up with the idea that maintaining a clean and organized living environment, cooking meals and cleaning up after yourself is not a gender-based responsibility.
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