LAST SUNDAY, we had a couple of close friends over for lunch. As it happens with close friends whom one has not met for a long time, it turned out as a long, rambling lunch where we were still sitting around at 5 o’clock. By the time they left, it was late evening, and somehow both Mr. B (the hubby) and I were feeling a little tired and coming down with headaches. Probably a result of the hectic, 6-day week we’d both worked and while Sunday had been fun, we hadn’t had any time to relax. And here were all the utensils still lying around, plates to be rinsed, delicate crockery to be put away. I got to it while Mr. B continued watching TV and then joined him, grumbling that he hadn’t helped me one little bit. I grumbled that I had to do it, I couldn’t possibly leave stuff lying around until the maid came in the next morning.
And that’s when he said, ‘You’ had to do it, I wouldn’t have, which got me thinking. What is it about housework that even the most liberated of us women continue to willing wear it around our necks like a millstone that we are proud of?
