Woman! As soon as the word is uttered what comes to mind is a home maker and to some extent a professional. But does anyone think of her as a individual or a living soul? Every time a woman travels to a new place means, she has to renovate her life and
life style completely. Because each country or state she visits demands a new life style, a new culture and of course, new people. Life demands so much from a single soul, in other words, saying good bye to one place
and welcoming the new place and start a new home from scratch is definitely not an easy task. It really requires one to be very confident, flexible and adventurous. And if a working woman has to travel every second year to a different country due to a job change of her husband, then her life becomes a chaos. She might have to sacrifice her job, her life style and get settled wherever her family demands. She will become dependent financially, which is very difficult to accept for an independent women. As someone who controls finance also controls freedom (believe me, it’s my personal experience). A woman at home becomes so insignificant just because she does not earn. A simple example to narrate, you give a call to your husband’s office, the universal answer is `I am busy, Watch some movie or go to your friends place’. Likewise an internet or a telephone breakdown. In her home country, an internet breakdown is just a simple phone call and is rectified. But being an expat, where internet acts as the main economical source of communication with family and friends, it becomes a difficult task of rectifying it, as it involves several attempts to get the correct person to solve the problem and mainly deal in a new language. It might take few days for rectification, but by then you will be broken down of communication with family and friends which makes you feel very depressed and down. Does anyone understand that time plays the same role in everyone’s life. Does anyone uplift the importance of a homemaker’s time not being utilized? She become so helpless, as the situation does not change and she needs to change her reactions to the situations. These situations make her dependent on materialistic things and become so helpless so lifeless.
Yes, now the question arises whether all these sacrifices are noticed or repaid? No never, but amongst all the happenings she in turn lose her identity and becomes frustrated. Her vision stands nowhere among all the happenings and changes. Does she prioritize her happiness? Definitely not! Especially when she has children she will feel that it is her duty to keep her family happy. She develops a feel that if the family is happy then she is also happy. Life demands to play so many roles, a loving mother, a responsible wife, and many other subordinate characters. We always assume when we are away from home country we need to be more responsible in relations and give up all our happiness for one reason that we are away from home.
Here, we make wrong assumptions, because unless we know what is our real happiness and our vision of life and help ourselves , we will never be able to guide or give our family the best. So we need to pass a message to all the expat women to always keep their identity . And always choose a job ( by either you or your husband) ,which supports your life and not change your lifestyle and principles as per the job requirements. We also need to concentrate on our goals, our visions and seek help from our family in fulfilling them. No matter if working women or a homemaker, see what your life demands and try to involve yourself in some activities, some volunteering, meet people, enhance your talent and keep your brains in constant motion. Do not just be happy with the say “ Behind a successful man, there is a woman“ But in turn try to change for good and put yourself into action and make the saying “ A successful man is always accompanied with a woman’’
Written BY KK
A well written article but grossly biased towards women highlighting their plight. A man does have his share of sacrifices but not so obvious, being mute is not an analogy to no sacrifices.
Firstly the decision to even leave their homeland and work in an alien society itself is a big step and the most obvious reason is to provide better for the family they cherish. It’s surprising when you mention the girl would have to accommodate to new cultures, lifestyle, friends, neighbors, etc but you fail to realize it is otherwise too.
Sacrifices are a part of any successful society, do we expect anything from our children when we raise them with umpteen number of personal sacrifices!!!! This is what makes us human, we strive to provide better for our next generation and do so without an iota of selfishness. In the process of providing, it is definitely harder in the present times when we are faced with job uncertainties, newer and bigger horizons unlike the earlier days when options were limited. To adapt to these changes it is obvious we need to push ourselves harder to keep up to the times. Most men do realize the sacrifices women make when they put their careers on the back burner and this directly translates to them wanting to do better professionally and try make up for the deed. We as humans have complicated our lives well enough and forced to live in an era of multi tasking and this applies to either genders.
Before signing off my entry, I will give away one little secret men think of expat housewives “Vacuous expat women with nothing to do but gossip 24 hours a day is more dangerous than a walk in downtown Baghdad”, give this statement a thought and you will realize the thought process of men and women are the same but women are just more expressive.
The main theme of the article was just to bring forth the life a woman leads as an expat. But yes everybody has the right to express their view , may it be a woman or a man. But between his busy life is a man able to give time to express whether frustration or love. I beleive when there is no expression there is no life!
Reading the article made me feel it was true experience of a expat women.But this article has 2 parts.Once which is a misconception which women is harboured by many women have / the thought process the society expect them to do and second part is what life teaches a women (could be generic of gender) ,”to overcome a hurdle given the circumstances you are in”.There is little bias to the woman side, probably becuase woman is an open book and men keep their emotions under lock and key and it is very difficult for a woman to anlayse it.
However it ailed me to have read the comment provided by a fan club member who proabably is a man to have felt it was a slap on the guys face.However the same fan club has shared some few great preachings and thoughts of upteem value.He does hold importance to family.The fan clubs members comment ” Most men do realize the sacrifices women make when they put their careers on the back burner and this directly translates to them wanting to do better professionally and try make up for the deed.”
This comment is a saying of a confused person. And such an action is no good to niether of them and maybe this is a live example or truth of the article.
According to me sacrifies are both ways.But in the bull run to make up for the sacrifice of your better half if you forget to share a few moments of togetherness and forget to show any caresness for each other ,sacrifices of both sides are lost.This is the point where the room for misunderstanings comes in.
A good article and a never ending debate topic:).
However a homemaker is no less than a working man.It is how each one makes the other feel to get the family and the life beautiful.
Yes I agree to her comment that where there is no room for togetherness and simple happiness then there is no meaning for the life we live!