Sunday, August 08, 2004

 

The Second Shift by Daisy

I grew up in the highly educated and modern family. Sometimes I consider myself lucky because both of my parents are business man/woman but they still have time to raise four kids. My mom and my dad try to compromise with each other time and schedule to meet our needs, especially on those special ocassion where we need them most like our graduation ceremony or even our birthday party. In Indonesia, most of middle to high income family have servants and drivers in their home. So, luckily, most family don't do the hard part like cleaning our house, do grocey shopping or even bathroom. But for my family, my parents still want us kids to clean their own room just like they clean their own room or even do the grocery shopping for the family. So the servant can clean the rest of the house and do the rest of household chores. Recently, since my mom been very busy at work, my dad have to do the honor to do grocery shopping for the family or sometime try to organize family fun time. As Deborah mention in the book that her husband can sometimes creating more work than they contribute - it is so true. When my dad did the grocey shopping with us kids, there always four or five things that he forgot to get or even call my mom at her office to ask which specific product or brand that she wants. It's so iritating when he did that, especially when he did not bring the grocery list. But the bright sight of it, we can have snacks, candies, and ice cream as much as we want when we went grocery shopping with my dad. On the contrary, when my dad was out of town and we need to replace several of our lighting fixture in the house, my mom did it for him. But this time, my mom was smarter. She just called our driver, who includes our technician, to replace the lighting fixture in our home. Or, when they both busy at work and will come home late, my mom will notify me to take care of my brothers and sister and even cook for them - of course with the help of the family servants. In short, in my family, the second shift work both ways, it can be my dad or even my mom. In return, everyone in our home have equal responsibilities doing the chores and we learned to compromise with each other time and limitation.

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