A Pretty Tray for My Cupcakes

Something happened to me the other day. I bought a little tray from a small gift shop. I loved it, it was ever so pretty. It made me happy. And then I thought to myself: This is it: I am officially a housewife. I get excited by kitchenware. When I was a young girl, my father left. No. That is not exactly what happened. Technically, he did not want to leave. He was quite comfortable where he was. But, he was kindly asked by my mother, who caught him cheating (again).

The important element in this story is that my mother had a good job, and money of her own. My mother was in a position to ask my father to leave. And for that, she should thank her ancestors.

My great grandmother was one of the very first educated women in Astrakhan. She was extremely beautiful, and could just pick on of the (as the rumour claims it) official 20 admirers, who had asked for her hand. However, she still studied, became a teacher, and was a leading woman figure of her time. Even after she got married to a very wealthy man.

Her eagerness to remain independent was then passed on to my grandmother. Pregnant and malnourished in the poor post-war years, she continued to study until she graduated from the music academy and became a piano teacher. People asked her why she bothered: she had a husband who could provide for her. She smiled, shrugged her skinny shoulders and kept on going.

My family was just one of the many others in the post-Soviet Muslim republic, where women spent long years fighting for independence, and for their right to education and work. I always heard, from the days when I was a little girl, how important it was to stand on my own feet, and depend only on myself. How crucial it was to get the best knowledge and skills I could, in order to survive in this world. Nobody in my family ever taught me that there was another, much easier way: through a man.

Yet, there is a large number of women for whom that seems to be the most obvious and desirable option.

I thought I was different. I was always proud that I did not chase that dream. I was not desperately searching for a potential husband so I could settle down and indulge in being a wife and a mother.

And look at me now. The girl met a boy, a boy asked the girl, and the girl thought: well, that actually sounds quite nice!  The girl moved to the UK with her new husband. A few years later, the girl decided it was a good idea to have a baby. The girl did not want to go back to commuting into the city and sitting at her desk for long hours, while a hired stranger watched over her child’s first steps.

Where we live now, the majority of women do not go back to work simply because they do not need to. They raise their kids and look after their nice homes. They buy pretty curtains and cook dinners.

As someone who was raised differently, I am surprised to see so many women around me happily do something my great grandmother and the others fought so hard against. Give up their independence so easily and so willingly for the joys of comfort, convenience and motherhood. This is not the western woman image I have always had in my mind. I guess, from movies I watched and stories I read back home, I always imagined western women to be more ambitious. More independent. More equal to men. I thrived to become one of them, and now…I am. Only the reality of my life in the UK is totally different to anything I had ever imagined it to be.

The old-fashioned family values are coming back and it is not embarrassing to be a housewife anymore. Naturally, a lot of it depends on where you live, and whether you can afford to stay at home. In our wealthy commuter village, where the majority of husbands work in banks and play golf, it is a strange concept for mothers to return to work. Those who do, are not understood and often judged: “What sort of mother would leave her kids with a nanny?” or “Why would anyone even have a child, if she is not interested in raising it herself”?

And I myself have changed.

It is inevitable. I am a married woman, and I am a mother now. I rely on my husband to provide the roof over our heads. I demand that he looks at the boiler when there is something wrong with hot water, and I dislike being alone at nights, when he has to work away. I rely on my husband for an awful lot of every day issues. And it feels nice to be taken care of. It appeals to my genetic predisposition to feel secure and protected. So it is understandable that most of us, married women, quickly get used to the situation and, well… relax.

But nothing is forever, and nasty things happen. A woman I met at a party tells me her partner had left her for another woman. A friend confesses over a drink one night that she had stayed with her cheating husband because she had nowhere to go. He was the main bread winner. She was an ex-pat wife- away from home, with two small kids. ‘What choice did I have?’ – She asked. – ‘I am trying to forgive him.’

A woman in a village is a widow with two small sons. Another friend’s husband lost his well-paid job and can not find another one. Things happen.

Nobody plans for the worst, but should we not be able to stand on our own two feet- just in case?

It is wonderful to have someone you could share everything with and depend on. But having embraced these comfortable roles of a mother and a wife, should we not try to maintain at least a small part of what we used to be?  Would it not make sense for us to be confident that, if something goes terribly wrong, we are still capable of taking care of ourselves and our children?

Moreover, would it not make us more interesting in the eyes of our partners, if we had something else to talk about, besides children, schools and curtains?

Perhaps, when we become nothing more than a mother and a wife, having that little something outside our family routine, should it be creating beautiful stained glass windows like a friend of mine, painting, or writing a book like some well-known mothers have done, will keep us from losing ourselves completely. Will keep our individualities from getting entirely dissolved in our husbands, family and kids; to an extent where the only thing we get excited about is a new tray for our kitchen.