Reflections from the daughter of a housewife

• Today, we have a beautiful essay by our community leader, Avani Patel, to celebrate and reflect on immigrant motherhood

• Don’t forget to join our second conversation club on May 29 at 7pm. Link to be sent out to paid subscribers day of!

• We’ll send out our monthly recommendations later this week!

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Of all the insults I regret hurling at my mother, the one I regret the most is, “When I grow up, I want to be nothing like you.” 

Like many fellow immigrants of their generation, my mother and father had clear gender roles. My mother’s work and world revolved around the kitchen, and my father was tasked with financial responsibility. While my father was working hard to provide for his wife, his children, his parents who lived in-house; his role remained mostly invisible to my young eyes.

Conceptually, I understood that his financial success allowed us so many opportunities. Visually, I was only exposed to the work of my mother. Work that looked less glamorous, more restrictive, and appeared to be more physically taxing. Work that seemed to tie her to our home.  

She spent long hours by the stove, making “DBS” every night - a Gujarati staple that stands for Daal, Baath, Shaak. Lentils, beans, veggies - which were always accompanied by fresh, handmade rotli. 

Every night, I would watch her perform this required ritual - fresh rotli dough, always from scratch. She’d scoop flour into a wooden bowl, and slowly begin to add water. She would mix it together, always by hand, her gold rings knocking against the bowl with a clink. As she did this, my anger would simmer - I was unable to comprehend why? Why do you do this? Why do you “have to”? Why can’t someone else? And she would tell me - in a blatant, matter-of-fact manner, “One day, you’ll have to do this too.”

This is where the heat rose - I’d go from a simmer to a full-blown boil - as she let loose another suffocating premonition: “No one will marry you if you don’t learn how to cook.” I know now that this statement was deeply informed by the rules that she knew. But back then, I perceived these statements as pure insults. They made me feel trapped, caged, and I would reach for the quickest escape. Which came out clumsily, in grand sweeping statements.

“I’m not going to be like you. I’m not going to cook. I’m going to work and make my own money. Maybe I won’t marry. Maybe I won’t even have kids.” I can only imagine now how hurtful this must have been to hear. How thankless her job must have felt. There she was - fulfilling the duty that she had been told was “the right thing” from birth. There I was - insulting her for it.