Are you desperate to join the housewives club?

Maybe you want to think twice before joining the club (image from www.desperate-housewives.maxupdates.tv)

During those late nights and early mornings revising a 100+ slide presentation for a big meeting at 8AM (which was, by the way, requested by client late that afternoon only) or trying so desperately translate tables upon tables of media data into a single sentence consumer insight, I remember that we (as the media industry is dominated by females) would always sigh or often cry out in frustration on a quick 5-minute breather: “I want to be an AB housewife!!!!!!” “AB” refers not to the body part that we, women, aspire to have as flat and defined, but rather the upper socio-economic class (or SEC as we call it), the stratosphere of economic hierarchy. We, slaves to the often thankless overtime work schedule to help pay our personal bills and maybe even helping out our respective families, nurtured our pipe dreams of being filthy rich housewives, enjoying our chauffeur driven cars to take us to yoga class or whatever fitness regimen is all that rage at the moment then to lunch and coffee dates with our equally rich housewife friends, planning our next tres chic charity event. This is the life we desperately wanted to have!

So when people come to know that I am a housewife (in the interim), I always hear gushes of “You’re so lucky!” or “My, oh, my how I wish I could be a housewife too.” Well dearies, don’t forget that I still am not an “AB” housewife…and that makes a whole lot of difference.

Dear Julia Child, it's not only Americans who are servantless. (image from tomandemma.wordpress.com)

I don’t have any maids, who are at my beck and call: does the laundry (folds them too), goes on all fours to clean the bathroom or maybe even does comb my hair as extra service. I don’t have a personal chef, who prepares healthy gourmet meals from sunrise to sundown. I don’t have a chauffeur to ferry me to the gym and to the shopping mall back to the gym and then home.

I wish I was living this glamorous, pampered life, but I am a regular housewife, who does the laundry, goes on all fours to clean the bathroom floors. I comb my own hair. Duh. If I won’t, then who will? I also prepare all the meals in our wee home. Oh, The Husband is my chauffeur, but I can basically find my way around via public transportation.

Am I complaining? No. But being a housewife is not all relaxing as it claims itself to be. It can be stressful at times, trying to fulfill my own delusional expectations of being the perfect housewife. (I told you I can be very neurotic.) It also can be very busy, juggling a list full of chores along with home-based work and some personal projects. Though I really have to say that it is truly fulfilling.

sleeping pig image from www.dreamstime.com

Today, while cooking porkchops with mushroom gravy, The Husband kept poking his fork into the pan to check for quality control, which he usually does when I cook. I couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear and do a little victory dance in my head when he exclaimed “Oh Mama!” after his hungry chomp on a porkchop. I think I finally nailed a recipe this time around, conquered a bit of the pressures from newly wed cooking, didn’t I?

I still have to do the laundry (and ugh, fold them too). I still have to go on all floors to scrub the bathroom floors clean. I still have to comb my own hair everyday. Of course. I still have to prepare all our meals (and wash all the dirty dishes). I still will have to navigate my way around this foreign country through public transportation (until such time I gather up the courage AND the money to get a driver’s license here). I don’t get to relax all the time. I get busy, so I get stressed too.

But these little porkchop victories make all the servant-less regular housewife’s blood, sweat and tears disappear, make the heart go pitter-patter because, at the end of the day, I know that I make my husband happy. Yes, I still may not be an “AB” housewife, but I am in a happy place and find myself not desperate to be one just yet.

Delirious about delicious,

Didi

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