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The Roles of Housewives
By Peace | July 17, 2007
“If you are a white-collar worker, maybe you should find out how to guard against cancer. If you are a blue-collar worker, you might just want to watch your heart and blood pressure. The report on the registration of births and deaths in Singapore for 2006 suggests a link between occupation and the cause of death.
About 37 percent of legislators, senior officials, managers, professionals, technicians and clerical workers died from malignant or cancerous tumours. Meanwhile, hear and hypertensive diseases were the leading cause of natural death across all categories of blue-collar workers, including cleaners and labourers. Nearly a third of such workers died from these causes.
The two types of diseases were also the top two killers overall in Singapore, accounting for more than half the deaths. In total, there were more deaths last year than in 2005, as 16393 deaths were registered, up 178 cases, or 1.1%. Death from malignant or cancerous tumours went up by 9.1% while those from heart and hypertensive diseases increased by 4.8%. “
This is a newspaper report abstracted from Weekend Today 14-15 July issue, reported by Derrick A Paulo.
I wonder where do housewives stand? Are housewives belongs to white-collar or blue-collar worker? As a housewife, I play multiple roles. As a white-collar worker, I had to manage the finances of the family, I play the role of a financial adviser and financial management; I also have to be my own secretary and clerk, and own boss, doing all my businesses at home. I am also the interior designer for the house. I also have to play the role of a care-giver, nurse, teacher, counsellor and advisor to the family members. I also have to play the role of a security guard and a police officer to make sure that everything is running well at home. As a blue-collar worker, I have to play the role of a cleaner, a chef, a technician and labourers.
Housewives like me, is an ‘octopus’. This does not mean that we are blur. It just got to show that we have to multi-tasking. It is hard to play multi-task but that is what housewives do. For any task that you have problems, you need to learn to cope. Parenting are never taught. Parenting is what you must learn. Some man just doesn’t seem to border. The wives just had to assume the responsiblities.
Are housewives rewarded and recognised? I believe there are some good guys are there who really care about their families — help their wives to do housework, care about the children’s welfare, share in the workload of the family and are devoted to their wives. In my environment, those people whom I had come across while I was working, neighbours, friends and families, I had not come across any guy who do not cheat on their wives. The wives have so much to do at home. The wives also go out to work. But can you imagine the husband who fool around and left all the work to the wife? The wife bears all the burden?
The children is no much better. They have so much workload and stress, as much as the adults. Time is so different from last time. It only get worse not much better. There might be better in the sense of material comfort. But it is mental torture in exchange. I would rather have a peaceful life without much stress. The children would love that too. Imagine those old times where children used to play tadpoles in puddles of water. Where can we see tadpoles nowadays? Children only get to see tadpoles in pictures on the internet!
Back to my housewife topic — Housewives are even worse when it comes to disease. We have to suffer women illnesses. We have more tasks, considering both the white- and the blue- collar worker. I am already feeling so breathless. Everyday I had to race with time. Everyday there is unfinished tasks and work awaiting for me to be accomplished. If I ever rest, everything is piling up. It makes matter worse. So I can experience the pain of blue-collar worker. And I can experience why white-collar worker had the tendency to develop cancer too.
Under such a circumstances, I am of course not being normal. My body is not in equilibrium. This is unhealthy. But what can I do? Who will help me? The children don’t understand. They are still children. They have a lot to learn and they need our guidance and care. I can feel my health deteriorating. I know what it is like to have heart pain, real pain. And I know what it is like to have other symptoms of pain. Stress is harmful to our life. But that is unavoidable.
Everytime we hear news about various occupation. But there is nothing ever mention about housewife. What is so glamourous about housewife? They are just simply ‘taken for granted’. The only time where you heard of ‘news’ about housewife is probably in the news whereby they are dead, they met accident or they are cheated. Other than that, just like this newspaper report, do they think of housewives?
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