When I was much younger, I remember feeling disturbed whenever I was asked in school what my mother’s occupation was. For me to label her a housewife on paper was embarrassing. Even at that age and our considerably traditionalist culture, I had the notion that being a housewife meant that my mother was uneducated, unsophisticated and of course boring. I didn’t want anybody to think lesser of my mother just because she is a housewife.

Of course, now that I am grown up, married and recently a temporary housewife, I could see how wrong I was. Now, I could only look back and ask myself in a bewildered look, “How did my mother do it?” For a start, I think that there is a huge misconception by many people particularly men and children that being a housewife means you have it easy. What is there to complain, right? You don’t have to deal with nasty bosses, office politics or hard labour and really, how hard it is to stay at home, do the housework and not having to think at all?