What is something that sucks about being a housewife?

You travel to office five days a week.

Work for some random person.

Load yourself with deadlines, documents, meetings and late-night shifts.

Get your salary credited every month.

And people call you independent.

You stay at home.

Work for the husband and family.

Cook for them. Decide what they should eat and have a control over their health and happiness.

Take care of the children; monitor their growth, behavior and their education. Help them with their study and life.

Manage the expenses and aesthetics of the house, among other things.

And people call it being dependent and slavery.

The fundamental problem here is

People measure ‘being independent’ with only money.

‘You earn your money, so you are independent.’

No, you are not. You are only financially independent.

To start with, marriage is all about being inter-dependent. Husband brings in some value, and wife brings in some value to make the marriage beautiful experience for both of them.

This ‘value’ needs not be always money. It could be time, service, management, comfort etc.

There is nothing wrong in being a house-husband or house-wife as long as their partner is okay with it.

Being independent is just one fancy term. A family, corporation, or any ecosystem thrives because the people inside are inter-dependent.

It is so important to understand the concept of inter-dependence, as well as individual choice in relationships.

I see so many people who call housewives as gold-diggers, who sit at home on their husband’s money etc. How they believe some magical fairy comes in to run their house if they assume their wife just sits at home all day doing nothing.

At the same time, I see so many people bashing working women for neglecting their children, being selfish etc.

Be it a woman or a man, each person is an individual along with being a partner in a relationship. They should be free to choose to work or be a homemaker. And of course they’ll manage their family too as they see fit.

I am a working woman. I am financially independent and don't think twice before spending money on what I want. Even then, mind you, I am quite careful on deciding what I want. I was never a spendthrift. Coming to the question, what sucks the most about being a housewife is

That term in itself sucks. There was a very interesting sentence told by FRIEND. “I'm not this house's wife, I'm my husband's wife.” I loved this so much and it’s just so true. You are the better half, the actual support system and provider of, if not financial, support and stability for the whole family.

She has had so many people, friends and relatives, asked her why she is not working. Why she is sitting simply at home, enjoying life. This just infuriates her to no end. I mean if she sits simply and start to enjoy, the whole house is going to be doomed. And yes it was her choice. She was not interested in going to a 9 to 5 job and she is basically not wired in a way she can just work where there are a lot of office politics and backstabbing. So she chooses to wait it over till she had her kid and she has the time to go for her dream job. It's something for which she has to study and spend a lot of time. She can't explain all this to every other person who is quick to judge her. It used to bother her but now she just proudly says,’’ yes I am a homemaker’’, knowing full well she will become who she wants to be and stand in front of these very people, holding her head high.

Listen up people. For everyone who thinks that a homemaker is simply sitting at home, you just have no idea. There's cooking, cleaning the house, the bathrooms, dusting, laundry and folding them again. These can really get repetitive and boring at some point.

Back in the time, my mother was very young when she married. She didn’t have any professional aspirations. Her only aspiration was to be a good wife, read housewife.

She would wait all day, wouldn’t feel like eating alone. She would just cook for her husband and wait for the evening.

Some days, my father would eat out without informing her. Some days, he might have had a hectic day at work and come back home tired without any will to talk over dinner. Some days, he would be furious over something and vent it out on my mother. Just some days, he would come back home to make her feel less lonely.

And my mother?

She would bear with her husband’s mood every day. Clean and cook to her best capacity. Not even knowing if she’d ever be appreciated or even thanked.

Being a housewife is sometimes a thankless job.