This morning while having breakfast, my pops asked me to make him a sandwich (I was actually having a sandwich as well, he wasn't trying to play on that blasted stereotype) for him to doggybag to his office. I immediately blurted out "What no, I can't." And he exclaimed "Wah okay lor." I immediately felt bad, but I responded "Dad, you're the boss, you can afford to be late; I'm nothing but an intern, I cannot afford to be late." Which is totally the truth, but I couldn't help feeling as if I had let down my Papa a little.
I think the guys in my family are sometimes awful, because they often use guilt as a tool to get away with their laziness. Painfully candid, I'm being, but it's really something that I feel they do. Especially with regard to household chores. For instance, when my younger brother finished his food, he doesn't wash his dishes - and he'll often say "Wah lao, 帮啦 (help leh)." When he says that, I'm often hit with a pang of guilt, because he makes me feel as if I'm being very unhelpful for just such a tiny favour. But! How many times am I supposed to do this tiny favour for you? You, my dear reader, may feel like I'm displaying pettiness, but I never ask my brothers for help much. My mother doesn't either. In the past, when my mom gave me instructions on how to do housework and suggestions on how to do certain chores, I used to get very frustrated, because of the tension between wanting to do well to please my mother and not wanting to excel in something like housework. Housework is never-ending. It's a dreary thankless fucking endless cycle of clothes to wash, counters to wipe, jeans to iron and windows to scrub. At least, that was what I used to believe. After living abroad for a little bit and starting to help my mom a little around the house, I realise that it's the sense of ownership in keeping one's possessions and abode clean and tidy that makes me feel a slight tinge of pride.
Within a household, however, there numerous parties. Each person HAS to do their own part in order for one person, that's often the poor lady, the mother, the wife, to not be overwhelmed. But the intricacies of family politics are just that, horribly difficult and extremely messy. When you take seniority into consideration, when you take blood relations into consideration, financial power, gendered expectations and a whole gamut of other factors, it's a hell lot more complicated than that.
So I've learnt to squelch my inevitable feelings of guilt, try to help whenever I can (i.e. when my family members don't have time or are in a rush), give my utmost effort at not launching into tirades about gender inequality rampant in the division of household chores in the Ng family to my mother - because I know that upsets her greatly - and just give and take whenever the situation calls for it.
I'll make my dad a sandwich tomorrow when we both ain't gotta rush for work yo
