Here's how you can manage a healthy work division with your partner

Here's how you can manage a healthy work division with your partner

Millennial men need to grow up and stop burdening their partners with micro-work, which takes a toll on a person’s health and deteriorates the quality of relationship

Somi DasUpdated: Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 08:53 PM IST
article-image
Pic: Freepik

Learning to organise your life to suit your needs, facilitate your growth and help you manage your time is the biggest adult skill. If you require an army of four people running after you to be functional daily, probably you are not doing adulting right. Each person today is on the brink of a breakdown due to exhaustion. Thus, it is necessary that you at least learn to do the bare-minimum self-care without bothering your partner and family members.

This is particularly true for male members in Indian families. Women are burdened with a litany of tasks. It involves not only looking after the overall organisation of the house but also remembering micro-details of their husband’s belongings at the moment. Women are further burdened with taking care of their husband’s health and packing nutritious lunches. If you doom scroll like me from time to time, you would have come across videos where millennial women blog about what they are packing for their husbands. They not only pack tasty food but also keep in mind calorie count and protein intake. I haven’t yet encountered one video where the husband is regularly packing such thoughtfully put-together power lunches for their wives.

This is not about equality or gender roles. Because all health fads are coming from male nutritionists and fitness gurus. It is strange that when it comes to replicating the learning in the kitchen, the burden falls on the woman’s shoulder. Because I have personally created a nutritious calorie deficit, protein-rich food for my brother, I know how much planning and work goes into the whole process. Why do women have to constantly worry about the next healthy meal? How difficult is it to put together a sandwich? Or throw in all the veggies in the cooker and make a wholesome khichdi? If you are interested in having a healthy and happy relationship with your partner, functional cooking and knowledge of nutrition are a must. You cannot leave your health or your food preferences to your partner only.

Cooking is a major task. I, however, want to draw your attention to micro-tasks that, on the surface, may not even look like work. Constantly bothering your partner by handing down things, leaving important documents and belongings in their care; or asking someone to look for something... These take up a person’s mental space, depletes their energy and impedes their personal growth. A person can feel endlessly stuck in only finishing these household tasks that are only serving one person. Often women have to take care of medical appointments. They have to remind their husbands and other male members of the family to have their medicines. It’s as if men find it easy to outsource very important and private tasks to women with a certain degree of hereditary confidence.

 I am not suggesting that partners must not do anything for each other. How two people in a relationship divide labour is a private matter. Also, we do certain things simply out of love and care. However, love cannot be the sole parameter for doing something for someone. Often, in Indian families, ‘love for family’ is used in exploitative ways to extract maximum work from a woman. Couples need to adhere to a new progressive value system when it comes to managing the house.

What you can do to have a healthy work division with your partner 

Allow your partner a no-disturb time in their day, let them choose the time

Ask yourself before you want to assign them a task - can I do it myself? Is it an absolute emergency?

Do not emotionally manipulate or blackmail them to do your work. 

Have set rules, obviously flexible ones when it comes to home management. 

Educate yourself about each other’s priorities when it comes to-do list 

Communicate about your daily routines, change in routine 

Try to merge your food habits as much as possible or learn to cook your meals

(The writer is a mental health and behavioural sciences columnist, conducts art therapy workshops and provides personality development sessions for young adults. She can be found @the_millennial_pilgrim on Instagram and Twitter)

RECENT STORIES

Javier Rodrigeuz and Nikhil Agarwal titillate people’s palate

Javier Rodrigeuz and Nikhil Agarwal titillate people’s palate

Holi 2024: How Traditional Songs Connect Generations Of Girmitiyas Spread Across The World To Their...

Holi 2024: How Traditional Songs Connect Generations Of Girmitiyas Spread Across The World To Their...

14 Must-Have Book Series Your Kids Will Enjoy This Holiday Season

14 Must-Have Book Series Your Kids Will Enjoy This Holiday Season

Masala Chai For The Soul Book Review: Laugh Your Way Through Troubles

Masala Chai For The Soul Book Review: Laugh Your Way Through Troubles

Renaming Mumbai's Railway Stations: Unveiling Mumbaikars' Thoughts On The Shift

Renaming Mumbai's Railway Stations: Unveiling Mumbaikars' Thoughts On The Shift