Wondering when is the last time women have witnessed doing something they love, except the monotonous duties labelled on them with infinite expiry date?

Well, probably their hobbies were visible only in their resume papers and that’s the end of it. Yes, that’s the final spot where their hobbies and passion were etched beautifully like sculptures and true to it, sculptures can only remain idle, especially for the feminine gender. Sad truth!

Kids are always forced to choose something as a hobby when they grow up, but little do they know that there is a limited validity period for it, especially for girls and the surprising part is that the validity end date exactly coincides with the wedlock date for the majority. Hobby is abandoned in the lobby of the wedding hall!

Hardly, the girls get to continue to do what they love doing, post marriage. It is too disheartening to see that society is so wired in a way that it doesn’t accept a girl to focus on something other than family, work and kids. Any of the extra stuff she does to engage or prioritise herself is always brushed aside as waste-of-time, whats-the-use-of-it, is-it-so-important, don’t-you-have-anything-better-to-do kind of remarks.

 Women always hear umpteen comments and questions from people around them,

be it newly married girls – ‘Oh, it’s the time you should take care of your husband instead of wasting time on extra activities’,

be it someone without kids – ‘Oh God, your priority should be getting a kid, not writing a poem’,

be it a mom reading books, ‘What is she doing with books, when her kid should be reading’,

be it drawing or painting, ‘Mere waste of time, she should be teaching her kid to draw’,

be it learning a musical instrument, ‘Is it needed for her at this age, when there is more work at home’,

or be it a simple thing like watching TV or browsing the net, ‘Oh, how does she even think to laze around being a mom’.

Women are always showcased in society as robots who are ideally expected to do the duties instructed to them and not deviate from the orders, failing which they are treated as persons who committed grave sin and someone who cannot be forgiven.

Why is it always forgotten that a woman is also a human with body and soul and has a life on her own? No one understands that she is not manufactured only to take care of her husband, kids, elders, work, home and the world around her.

It is high time there is a fix to this universal issue.

Let the revolution begin from the home and let us teach the sons of today that the husbands of tomorrow should treat wives nothing less than how they are treated themselves. Teach them to live and let them live.

Let the husbands of today be better role models to their sons by uplifting their wives and not by chopping off their wings of interest. Sometimes, do let the ladies prioritize themselves too, for they have always dedicated their birth and breath to all loved ones around them.

Just give a little space to girls to achieve and be amazed at their humongous strength and potential.

Don’t just celebrate womenhood but just let them be them!

About the author

Josephine Infant Jerisha

Hailing from a small village called Virapandianpatnam in the Tuticorin district, Josephine during her school days, had secured lots of prizes for extracurricular activities like writing essays, poems, stories, drawing etc and published articles in magazines like Thulir and Tinkle. She also received a state-level award for the recitation of 1330 Thirukkural from the then-education minister Honourable Thiru. Anbazhagan. She had earlier worked in a top IT company in Chennai and is currently living in Kuwait, working for a Telecommunication MNC. She has a great passion towards writing poems, essays, and stories and a keen interest in reading books. And she has a daughter aged 11 years, who is an avid reader and has a deep passion for writing stories.