From cooking, cleaning, shopping, looking after the family to keeping pace with all the new trends and requirements, women have emerged as Homemakers shedding the label of housewives. A man can be a good husband, a caring father and even a good cook, but he cannot be a good homemaker.
By Priyanka Gupta
A thoroughly beautiful woman and a thoroughly homely woman are creations which I love to gaze upon and which I cannot tire of gazing upon, for each is perfect in her own line.
?Mark Twain, Autobiography
Mrs. Homemaker is a woman whose personality is divided as a mother, a wife and a daughter-in-law and who has the strength and sensitivity to run the world. Her ever emerging innovative ideas bring energy to the family joys.
To learn the art of a homemaker one need not visit any engineering school or pass doctorate. Nevertheless, the art of homemaking need the proficiency of an engineer or a doctor.
Homemakers of XXI century are educated, well versed with all the hard realities of life and her smiles enliven the world. She is an expert of home management skills. Her full time job requires skilled hands to work on.
The homemaker plays the role of a doctor when she keeps health record of each family member. She is an engineer as she contrives ways for her family. She is into the construction business as she exerts herself physically, emotionally and spiritually to nourish and preserve lives of her family members. And most important, she is an intelligent accountant when she manages the monthly budget of the family even with the scanty income of her husband. This full time work is no cakewalk. One has to work hard to learn these skills.
The greatest achievement of a homemaker lies in her indomitable convincing power. Even a finance minister dare not resist her expertise. Every year economic policies are primarily based on the premise not to offend a homemaker?for she manages the budget of her household herself.
?A man can be a good husband, a caring father and even a good cook, but he cannot be a good homemaker,? says Mrs. Divya Bhatnagar, deputy managing director of SEE India Magazine. The difficult part of being a homemaker, she says, is ?to keep every one happy without anyone knowing about the pain and agony?. A woman faces challenges of life, keeping everyone happy, she adds further. When asked to define the role of a good homemaker, she says with frankness in her voice, ?A good wife, obedient daughter-in-law and caring mother constitutes a good homemaker.?
A Homemaker might not know the latest WTO development, but she is always ready with the list of things she plans to purchase after the Union Budget. Not only her home constitutes her job, they also work part time from their homes. She has set her timetable and attends dance classes or any other hobby classes accordingly.
Interestingly, woman folk constitutes more than 70 per cent share in direct selling industry. Direct selling companies operating in India are mostly working in the field of cosmetics, personal products, household products, cookware and health food. According to an Amway India official, ?Direct selling offers flexible working hours and therefore allows women to take business as well as household responsibilities together.?
Homemakers are the money-generators for all the business houses. Large conglomerates are spending money to catch the attention of this very section of consumers. Special fashion shows, award functions and TV shows have been launched keeping her view in mind. Today, Indian Advertisement world is at its top and spending most on these role models.
Romi Sharma, National Commission for Woman Under secretary cum PRO accepts her role as a homemaker and stresses that a woman can be a good homemaker despite being a housewife. She believes strongly the need to awaken woman of their rights and their own selves. According to this NCW activist, a self-conscious effort must be made to locate women’svoices within patriarchal discourse, to retrieve woman’shistory.
From the ages of cooking, cleaning, shopping and looking after the family and keeping pace with all the new trends and requirements, she has emerged as a ?homemaker? from the label of age-old housewife with her name. Her role is extended from time to time for the social harmony. Sometimes at railway station or cinema counters men ask women’sfavour to get the tickets quickly! This amounts to taking unfair advantage of the separate facility. Isn?t?
Ranjana Gupta, M.Sc. gold medallist and a homemaker says, ?It is a hard reality that homemakers get time for themselves only when they are free from their work. Self remains secondary to them. But is not this true for all human beings?? ?For a homemaker, if her family sits together and their interest in TV matches, what can be more exciting than this!? These are the voices of women of this century.
?Homemaking is a tough job, the more you put into it, the less it appears?, says Mrs. Inderpaul Kaur, 38, mother of three. ?There are hundreds of innovative ideas generated for winding down the household activities perfectly?be it cooking or cleaning? tells this homemaker, who has worked as a teacher for eleven years and turned into full time homemaker since the birth of her youngest daughter, with a cheer on her face.
Another homemaker chips in, ?When you cook, don’tjust cook for the sake of it. Try out new ways of making your food delicious and healthy.? A homemaker today is smart enough to work, earn and satisfy whole family. No man can match her wits, she opines. The homemakers in our homes are living without any protest and work as dutyful daughter, sister, mother and wife. This is the Indian tradition. Homemaking is not about compelling anybody behind walls. This art is a human necessity.
Today, a homemaker can be identified as a better cook, a baby expert, a philosopher, an interior designer, and a high dreamer who has realised her dreams. She has emerged as a trendsetter. It is time to celebrate the spark of her supremacy.
