Home sweet home

Making a Home, sweet Home is a dream of every woman. To realise this dream she embraces duties assigned to her with sheer devotion. We questioned both household and career oriented women about challenges, priorities and obstacles.
Q-Top five priorities of your life:
Adeeb: Be good to everyone, Healthy nourishment of my family, Teaching children discipline, Working hard, No wasting of time. Amina: Consistency, Proper planning, Independence, Confidence, and Hard work.
Effat: Respect everyone, understanding of responsibilities, time management, distribution of love, giving quality education to children. I.C John: Teaching moral values to kids, happiness of family, Time management, Hard work.
Q-Your best skill: Adeeb: My best skill is to keep balance between my household chores and family time. Some women find it more important to go for shopping and outing than to spend time with their children, this imbalance creates many problems for household women. I love to cook and stitch for my family.
Amina: Being a woman means giving good performance at home and at working place. I am a doctor, a mother and a good wife all at the same time. I think that is my best skill. I.C John: A woman should be an all-rounder. She should be active and know cooking. Despite of my busy schedule at hospital, I can cook good food. I hate lazy people and like to be very active at home and in hospital to complete my duty on time.
Effat: I belong to a happy middle class family. Women of middle class family should have skills of organising their time among their family, relatives and friends. Home, for me, is the place where every member of my family gets satisfied from my performance.
Q- Proving abilities and getting rewards a difficult task: Adeeb: Yes, it is difficult but not impossible for a woman to prove herself. With strong will power and determination, she can provide evidence of her abilities. It is my faith that hard work and determination always give you reward in the form of appreciation. For household woman word of appreciation from her family members is acknowledgement of her talent.
Amina: If you are perfect in your work, it is not difficult to prove yourself, either at home or at workplace. These days' women are proving their abilities in every field including teaching, research work, and business administration. Women do get rewards for their hardship. At home, devotion to family wins her respect and praises. At workplace, she has to make use of extra energy to prove her abilities.
Effat: No, by keeping balance between home and her duty she can prove her abilities easily. I have used all my abilities to make my home a paradise on earth. All my three children are Engineers and that is what I always have dreamed. I am very happy to get my reward for my hardships.
I C John: Yes, it is difficult because in our society males are the dominant gender. Both at home and at work place, he is a supreme authority, and she has to face painful constraints. Women work hard but not get enough rewards. Instead, they are always pressurised by males both at home and at work. The reason is that ours is a male dominated society. In some cases, all her efforts appear fruitless because of male chauvinism.
Q- Challenges to deal with: Adeeb: I live in a joint family system. The biggest challenge of living in a joint family system is to respect everyone's views. I am lucky to have educated and supportive in-laws. Before taking final decision on any matter, I talk it out to the elders of the family.
Amina: Woman of today is fighting against false norms of the society such as misconceptions that woman is physically and mentally fragile, coward and diffident. She has more opportunities to live her own life because of having more capability to perform her duties. Unfortunately, people create hurdles in the way of achieving her target.
Effat: For a household woman, the most important challenge is to keep unity of her home intact. Every member of the house has so many expectations from her so she has to be there for everyone all the time...with keeping her best attitude constant.
I.C John: Today, woman faces many challenges. At work, she struggles to maintain her integrity to come up to the level of men working with her. While at home she uses all her abilities to please her family. She has to take wise decisions to keep herself away from criticism and deception.
Q-Reasons of depression: Adeeb: Usually I try my best not to get disheartened over minor issues. I get depressed when I am incapable of getting desired results. Amina: This is my firm belief that one not always gets his/her results, however, there is no point in getting depressed as the life goes on and there is always a next time.
Effat: I have strong faith that difficulties are just a small part of big life. Today woman is more responsible and efficient then she used to be in past. I always focus my mind towards the final destination and always work for it. I.C John: I get depressed when my hard work does not bring me satisfactory results. Often things go against my expectations. However, this phase of depression gives me strength to work even harder to get desired results.
Q-Completion of everyday tasks: Adeeb: Every woman has double duty of performing household chores and maintaining harmony of the home. To accomplish her tasks she needs moral support of her family. I face everyday challenges with the support of my husband and mother-in-law. There is a very good understanding between my mother-in-law and me so we solve everyday problems with mutual discussion.
Amina: Being a career-oriented woman the biggest everyday challenge is to keep a balance between my job and family life. To face these challenges I am lucky to be among those women who get support from their husbands. Effat: My children are my life and reason of my existence. Teaching them good moral values is my everyday task. I make them focus on studies more rather on superfluous activities. Time management is very important for me. I keep it intact by scheduling everything before time and try to follow the schedule. Early to bed and early to rise is the simplest formula to face everyday tasks. Further, my husband is supportive; without him, it will not be possible for me to be what I am today.
I.C John: These days everything is shown on media from violence to abusing language. Moral values are degrading rapidly making it difficult for parents to manage child's limit. I pray God for giving me strength to face all challenges successfully. After stressful workday when I reach home all my tiredness disappears and I concentrate to take care of important household tasks.
Q-One weakness of woman:
Adeeb: She cannot laugh away difficult situation.
Amina: Woman lacks leadership qualities.
Effat: Woman is soft- hearted by nature.
I C John: She is emotional and often double minded.
8-Message on women day:
Adeeb: Making proper schedule can overcome workload stress. Avoid doing multitask at one time because it becomes haphazard.
Amina: Every woman should work, get married, have kids, be ambitious and always feel at her best.
Effat: Always keep faith in ALLAH and hold His guidance. You will stay happy always and live a successful life.
I.C John: We must give importance to our family. It is in.

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Name             Duty                      Role model

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Amina Raza       Doctor             Mother and sister

I. C John        Senior staff nurse            Mother

Adeeb Waqar      House-wife                    Mother

Effat Akhlaq     House-wife                   Parents

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