The concept of “shared care” is finally gaining ground thanks to the pandemic crisis. The term can be defined as a radical unlearning of social conditioning, honest sharing of domestic work and emotional labour between partners so that both may thrive at home and work, and remain in a healthy relationship.

Shared care helps remove gender as a base for who does more care work. It allows the couples to list out their goals where they equally share the responsibility and this in turn increases gratitude.

"All my growing years I've seen how social, cultural and economic factors have pushed women to focus and prioritize caregiving responsibilities over anything else.  In the long term it challenges their joys of freedom, space, or economic security too in some cases," said Krishna Kumar, a 35-year-old married woman working from home. Besides her husband, Krishna has her 6-year-old son as part of her family. 

She further talked about how they--both the husband and the wife together--have mapped out shared care, as a rule, to pitch in with household chores so that one individual does not have to bear more workload. "I've read about how lockdown and self-quarantine have increased a woman’s workload because people are home-bound across the world. I am a Business analyst and when I researched I got to know that Indian women do nearly six hours of unpaid care work each day while men barely even complete an hour of it. 

Kunal, my husband and I have made it a point to divide the chores equally without any kind of biases. This let’s us focus equally on our professional commitments and both of us can care for Krish, our son for equal hours. I believe it is important for me as a woman to be clear of my expectations in the first place as that is how I would be able to openly ask for rest or support. I have many friends who've been burdened with the expectations of others so much so that they can now barely even express themselves amidst their own people.

Women are already vulnerable due to huge physical transitions throughout their life, and an added lack of domestic and emotional support can have long term consequences on their mental health. This is something I understood way before my marriage from observing my own parents and I knew I had to do something about it.

I am happy that Kunal and I share behaviours that are inclusive, empathetic and accommodating of equal lifestyles due to which we are able to work and live our lives with happiness and satisfaction even during the quarantine. 

I would personally urge women today to talk about shared care and its importance for our physical and most essentially our mental health. After all, it is high time we ask for what we deserve-- a little help and equality is all that we need!"