Circulate the following story and then everyone will understand:
Old schoolbook story on Cross Functional Awareness
A farmer who regarded his job as highly valuable in running the family, considered his wife's role as menial. On his constant taunting by him, instead of arguing without any proof, the wife offered to exchange of roles till either of them accepted the others point of view.
The earlier story was as follows:
The farmer's wife would get up early in the morning and start finishing the morning chores deftly. She would prepare tea for the farmer, make ready his Babul brush, and fill up a jar of water for him to wash his face and mouth and then wake him up. He would wake up when she had made three or four attempts. She will quickly prepare food for which he would take away with him when he went to the farm.
Once the husband went to farm, she would take up other daily chores like getting water from the well, milching the cows and buffaloes, making whey and butter out of curds made from milk and deliver milk to her customers.
Then her small children would get up and had to be cleaned, bathed and fed before they were made ready to go to school. By the time she finished all this, it would be noon and she would have a short siesta after lunch. She would get up and start working again on evening activities. Once in a while she would grind the grains to augment stock of flour. She would start preparing evening meal and some eatables for children who would return from school in early evening. She would get ready water and fresh clothes so that her husband can take a refreshing bath when he returned from farm. Before sunset she had to clean and fill up lanterns to provide light at night. When the herd returned from grazing she had to secure them in their places, feed them and then milch cows and buffaloes. After providing dinner to her husband and children, she could go to bed after cleaning the utensils.
The challenge story:
Since the first to wake up in the family anyway, was the wife she had no trouble getting up and getting ready on time. Being a farmer's daughter and wife she had no trouble harnessing the bullocks and drive away to the farm. She had cooked her own lunch as a precaution. She found working in open field in sun some what tenuous but not impossible. At home, since the husband had never awakened on his own, he awoke only when the sun had gone up in the sky. He was habituated to having everything ready for him when he woke up. Now that he had to fend for himself, he floundered. He could not lay hands on Babul brush nor could he find the jug to fill up water for his use. Somehow he finished this activity and wanted to have tea. He tried to light up the hearth but did not know how to go about it. The kitchen was filled up with smoke due to improper burning of wood and he started coughing and was breathless. Somehow he managed to make tea and went out and barely took a sip when the children woke up and started bawling for their mother. He had a hard time cleaning, bathing and feeding them. He almost blew his top due to simultaneous cacophony of children who wanted something or the other which he could not provide. With great effort he succeeded in getting them ready and dispatching them to school.
Once the children were gone he suddenly realised that he had not eaten anything since morning and he did not have anything ready to eat. He once again went through the ordeal of lighting the hearth and faced more smoke than heat. Somehow he managed to prepare some modicum of lunch. In the very first bite he winced at the bad taste and regretted at not having tasty food prepared by his wife. When he lay down for afternoon siesta his stomach was virtually empty, his body was aching and he had a severe headache.
In the early evening the children came from school and started hollering for snacks. He did not know where things were stored and had hard time keeping them under control till his wife returned from farm. The wife tauntingly said, “Array, will you give me a glass of water? I am so tired.” The farmer was pissed off but kept a tightlipped silence. The wife smilingly went about the chores that he was supposed to carry out as per the challenge.
Moral of the Story
Due to the male ego of the farmer the tragedy continued for a week before he lost steam and sheepishly accepted the defeat. He learned the lesson of the “cross functional awareness and appreciation” the hard way. Let us not go through the trials and tribulations before we learn the lesson.
Role Reversal taught him to appreciate his Wife's Point of View. So let us not learn the hard way like the farmer!