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Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

Mama’s boys Get your children to help around the house and they’ll grow up sensitive and considerate

Wouldn’t it be better then to use this space productively, and talk about this spanking-new, revolutionary, idiot-proof theory to turn the world on its head - get the men off their backsides, a project as ambitious, as challenging as halving the world’s CO2 emissions overnight?! Why, we know of whole generations of men, who’ve considered it their birthright to be pampered first by their mothers and then by their wives; an idea that was put into their heads by – hold your breath – their own moms!

It’s the moms who’ve had one rule book for the daughters and another for the sons; they bought cookery sets and cross-stitch patterns for little girls, cricket-kits for the boys; they taught girls to tell apart moong from urad dal, grooming them inadvertently, right from when they’re so high, to run a household, while the boys weren’t so much as asked to clear their own plates after dinner! How then do you get men to overcome their legendary revulsion towards housework, the chores that they so willingly, merrily outsource to their better halves?

Catch them young, that’s how!

“Moms certainly need to smarten up the boys. Personally, I feel once the previous generation’s moms’ compulsions to treat the son and heir as God’s own disappears (it’s already happening), the boys are in for a tough time,” says Preeti Sriraman (name changed), mom of a teenage boy and girl. “Clearly, men can no longer goof off splitting the house-work with their wives; because, it’s now no longer ‘why’ should men work around the house, it’s ‘why not!” says Sheetal Agarwal Shah, mother to two little boys. “When both partners are working, it makes no sense if, after work, one sits in front of the television and the other slaves in the kitchen,” reiterates Yashoda P. Gajjela. “I keep telling my boys that they have to pitch in, even if only in small ways, to help me run the house,” she adds.

Inherently, there are, according to Preeti, distinct variations; while boys, she says, are a bit ‘spaced-out’ about housey-stuff, girls are pretty much ‘all there’. “Look, I love both my children very much, but when it comes to entrusting them with a chore, my money is on my daughter,” she says. Sheetal believes that boys simply have to be brought up to start early in life. “Of course my sons – ages four and two – make a mess, but they’ve been taught to clean up after themselves. In fact, my older son’s so good that his teacher even jokes that she would like to borrow him for the weekends!” she quips.

“You know, all I ask for are little favours — the older one helps me by setting the table for dinner, while the younger helps me clear away” says Yashoda. “In fact, it’s the small, thoughtful gestures that make me really happy — spreading out wet towels to dry, taking down their clothes from the line, folding it and putting it away… These, believe me, I value more than expensive gifts, for the feel-good factor lingers for much longer,” she adds.

And these are the very same qualities – sweet, sensitive and considerate – that the girl who marries them years later will look for… Women these days, let us hasten to assure you, are made of stern stuff, and they’re quite unlikely – especially when there’s a pile of ironing to be tackled – to be seduced by distant promises of a swish holiday on the Swiss Alps.

Moms, clearly the future happiness of your sons is in your hands… please hand them the broom and pail; buy them kitchen-sets and toy-vacuum cleaners (by the way, why are, Sheetal seethes, toy vacuums always pink, marked ‘for girls only’?); tell them, as you feed them dinner, tales of strong men who never quailed at the sight of a sink full of dirty dishes, super heroes who could perfectly sort out socks, that the return on investment of two hours of housework every week is far higher than a two- carat rock on the third finger of the left hand…

Please don’t leave it until its too late…because if you do, it becomes another woman’s headache to house-train the by-then fully-grown, set-in-his-ways man. But then, unfortunately, as Sheetal says, 27 years may be way too old to start…

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