Today’s tip: SHAPE UP YOUR ALLIANCES, START AT HOME. It is 7am, you are likely awake because your body is used to do so at 6am and rush out of bed, but there is a new dynamic… Your commute is limited to a change of room, your business attire has slowly morphed into a fashion statement which includes your pajama and your sports outfit. Your routine is no longer and you are still trying to fully assimilate, define and accept the new one. If you are lucky to have your spouse and family with you, they are equally adjusting as best they can, smiling as much as feasible, understanding as much as possible, giving their love as best they know.
These are days of forced change but it is up to us to decide if they will also be days of improvement. Many of us are discovering a brand new world, sometimes an intimidating one. Staying at home is harder than we thought, managing the house and the family is much more difficult and demanding that we ever believed, parenting 24/7 is a daunting task. If we are learning from these past weeks, we should be building new ‘super heroes’ and ‘celebrities’ in our brains, starting with our spouses, the teachers of our children, the people who clean, wash or cook for us, etc.
Fellow male colleagues, the time is ripe for us to reconsider our role at home, do not waste this opportunity, do not walk out of lockdown with a weakened relationship, do not come back to the office without the conviction that you have forged a stronger alliance and a tighter bond with your wives. Shape up your partnerships on the basis of understanding, recognition, validation. Practice at home our official position on equal rights and equal responsibilities. Serve as role model for your daughters so that they see and live a new normal in which their aspirations and dreams need not be truncated or shorthanded by anything else than their capacities. Serve as a role model for your sons, so that they will not need to make the efforts we are making just to do what’s right and smart.
Gender equity starts at home: https://hbr.org/2020/05/gender-equity-starts-in-the-home
Here is a 2 mins video link that explains how women are affected by COVID in a specific way.
For the weekend, you may wish to go a bit deeper: “Covid 19 – Integrating Gender Based Violence Risk Mitigation” https://agora.unicef.org/course/info.php?id=25131
Stay safe and take care.