My Middle-Class Lens: Having Domestic Help For Household Chores Is A Privilege

Domestic help for household chores is a blessing for women. In a lot of Indian households, it is assumed that the responsibility of household chores falls on women. Any help, therefore, in this aspect is welcome. Working women benefit a lot when they have access to domestic help.

This is because working women perform full-time jobs outside of their houses. They then come back home exhausted from the day's work to deal with household chores. The existence of domestic help here lessens the domestic workload for working women.

But what about those women who do not have access to domestic help for household chores? Working women and homemakers both in such instances face a large workload of domestic tasks.

However, domestic help is not affordable for everyone. The more tasks you want your domestic help to perform the more expensive their services are. Not all women might have the means or intent to allocate their budget to hiring help. They might feel that investment in other areas might prove fruitful.

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My Experience Without Domestic Help For Household Chores

I'm in my mid-twenties and I'm privileged enough to receive domestic help for some of my tasks if not all of them. Even then I find it exceedingly difficult to manage all of my tasks, office work, and household tasks, on a regular day.

I'm in constant awe of women who manage to balance both their full-time jobs and household chores all by themselves. That is not to say that I advocate that to be the standard every woman should attain.

I often find myself hoping I had domestic help to help me out with more of my tasks. However, I do not have the budget required to make that investment at the moment. Therefore, I have no other option but to balance both work-life and the domestic domain.

A friend of mine not only has domestic help that cooks all her meals for her but also serves them on a tray for her. They fold her clothes and take charge of cleaning my friend's wardrobe. My friend also has domestic help grooming her dogs, feeding them, and even training them. Being a dog mother myself, that seems like a dream for me. She has a chauffeur that drives her around for her classes. I do not have either a car or a chauffeur.

I aspire to have that lifestyle for myself where I have to worry little about running a household and focus on earning money and working a fulfilling job.

On a regular day, I cook for myself, for my dogs, go to the gym, attend college, and work an internship. I also tutor on the weekends.

It is not ideal to compare, but one cannot help but draw a parallel between people of the same age category.

My friend with very little domestic worry will be more likely to perform well at their academics and job because they are well rested and free to give their undivided attention to their job. Me or any other woman with a lot of domestic work on her plate is less likely to be able to perform their best at their jobs or academics with an exhausted body and mind.

Women in live-ins in western countries are more likely to receive some domestic help from their spouses than women in India. This is because household chores are gendered here. A lot of households contend that it is undisputedly a woman's domain.

Being able to afford domestic help is not a privilege that all women can afford.

The views expressed are the author's own.