In praise of the working week

Weekends are considered a time for relaxation and rejuvenation, for catching up on one's hobbies and, in general, getting in touch with one's inner self and reassessing one's goals and dreams.

At least that's how it used to be in a distant time in the Land of Singletons, in your girls' hostel or your parents' lodge. You work hard for five or six days, then come home and put up your feet, listen to music, complete the half-done sketch that was staring one-eyed at you all week.

A manicure, an evening out with friends, maybe even a dose of leisurely laundry - and then, rested and refreshed, you're bright eyed and bushy-tailed at work when the week starts.

Life would be even better if there was someone special to share these moments with, you think. Misconception No 1.

Because, when the plunge is taken into 'dualdom' and you imagine that you'll get twice the spice, what you land yourself in is double trouble. It starts with a stray incident of putting away someone's socks - that something so innocuous could eventually assume the mega proportions of picking up behind your spouse and children and grandchildren over the next three or four decades never enters a young woman's thoughts as she lithely bends and stretches and clears up.

The prospect of creaking bones and muscle pains and aches and spasms belong in the realm of the impossible along with actually crossing over the invisible line and growing old and being taken for granted.

And when somewhere and sometime between that first encounter with the socks and its becoming a way of life, you also think, how wonderful to fill the house with the laughter of children, you get misconception No 2.

Because while managing a home for two and a career did leave time over the weekend to laze, to party and to catch up on what you've wanted to do all week, those tiny bundles of joy can bungle up your routine beyond retrieval. True, they fill the house with laughter, but not as often as they fill it with their colicky cries, their toddler tantrums and so much else.

Oh yes, motherhood changes the picture - slightly at first, more and more drastically as the children take over the mind and heart.

You give up your weekend partying, then the rare weekday late nights become extinct, then picnics are what weekdays are for while the father of the family is out earning the daily loaf. You rearrange your schedule, you get used to these fun days with the kids, and suddenly the only day of the week when the father is home throws everything off kilter.

Suddenly, there's this thinking, reasoning, full-grown adult who wants to be pampered and pandered to like the pint-size versions of himself, and you're no longer accustomed to someone so large coming underfoot and standing forlornly at the kitchen door waiting for his treat for the day.

As you begin to question whether you can weather this, pre-school and then regular school come to your rescue. Everyone is off for a few hours and you get a break so that you can just flop in front of the television screen, staring blankly at some romantic drama where perfect people play out their perfect lives before your disbelieving subconscious.

This is about the time when the truth hits you square in the face and misconceptions go out of the window. The weekend, looked forward to by everyone else, is too much for you to handle.

A small or a large person in the way everywhere you turn, demands that are too frequent and too many, not to mention unreasonable, help that is miniscule and reluctant, meals that extend into one another so that it seems that someone is eating all the time, the table is never clear, the stove is never off&

Oh, what a welcome relief is the working week!

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.