 |
I have this absolutely awesome idea!
In which I believe can make a whole lot of difference. What say, we each adopt a housewife?
It can be this amazing scheme in which each young woman or even a young man, can adopt a middle-aged housewife, who has stopped working, or has never worked in her entire life, and help her find a better meaning of life! We can bring them shopping, visit museums, watch movies and avant garde films and do something they have never dreamt before doing like roller blading! We can teach them basic skills like how to use the computer, how to type documents, how to explore the Internet and maybe even find some form of work in which they can do in their free time. We can help them make social contacts and forge friendships with other women in society, and together, contribute to the community in one way or another! Get them away from the tube and the sandiwaras! Explore! Breathe! And take charge!
The aim? To give them happiness, a personal aim and ultimately, independence from their husbands.
I think Marc Cherry had it right when he first conceptualised the series Desperate Housewives. Women, who marry and settle for a life in the home to tend the household and children, more often than not, degenerate into an almost unrecognisable form of dependency and blind trust for their husbands. Their lives revolve around the home. They get money only from their spouse. They are bounded by their family.
So what happens when their husbands screw up? What if they leave these wives in a lurch? What if they have affairs? What if they marry another secretly? What if they empty out their joint accounts? What if the children are still young? What if the husbands unexpectedly passes on before them? What then?
It’s sad, but it’s true. And many across the world have experienced this. Many in Singapore too. Not as glamorously or dramatic as what is depicted in Desperate Housewives. But definitely real. Painfully real. The strong survive, but the dependent just flail in desperation… It isn’t easy to pick up. It isn’t easy to move on. It isn’t easy to start again.
Which is why I think my awesome idea works. Young women, don’t abandon your elders. They’ve been where you’ve been and can share a lot. If you listen.
But older generation can too learn from the young. The spirit of adventure, the feel of independence and the awareness that you can do anything. Well, that’s what I think anyway.
It could just work.
