Exhausted and bitter
BarcelonaSuffocated between two diaper sizes. Invisible amidst digital calendars that remind us of appointments with other people's "first-degree" relatives. Crushed by an army of human resources that treats us as if we were being given "vacation" to demand hard-won rights. Buried in a system that thrives on us, women in our forties and fifties who care, work, and care, care, care, care until others take over and care for us, care, care, care; or not.
They call us the sandwich generation: a wave of women rushing from pediatricians to nursing homes without even knowing who our family doctor is because we don't have time to listen to our own bodies. We are the unsung heroes of everyone else's health. But in all the caring, scheduling, requesting, and participating in community tasks for the common good, we overlook the essential: no one is taking care of us. Even today, I'm still looking for the couple born in the 80s when he had his children. the app of My health And she requests leave to care for first- and second-degree relatives, schedules doctor's appointments, and takes on her own and her family's physical and mental burdens. She doesn't hesitate to ask for work-life balance days because she works for a small company or because she's just been promoted. I hope I'm wrong and it's because I haven't looked hard enough.
There aren't enough hours in the day to do everything. We reduce our working hours because we prefer to have less income to care for others—95.7% of reductions are requested by us (INE)—with the economic and emotional dependence that this can entail. And while we put our careers on hold, our caregiving careers are getting longer and longer: life expectancy is increasing, and if in the early years we cared for children, now we extend the care of the elderly until we ourselves begin to grow old.
And in this race against time that we dedicate to others, a few weeks ago we saw how the hope of having a measly 150 extra minutes a week for work-life balance (reduced working hours) slipped through our fingers so as not to harm the "small business owner."
I feel like I'm losing the youthful exuberance of a precious stage of life. I'm aging intellectually and physically at high speed due to the lack of personal space. I loved going to the theater, going to the movies, I used to scheme to buy concert tickets, and now that I could afford to pay for good venues, I lack the time and energy to cultivate myself. And when I mention it, they tell me I should "prioritize myself" and find time, but my freedom begins at 10 pm when I'm already a sack of potatoes.
Reduced working hours for everyone
The current 40-hour workweek was approved when the vast majority of workers were men. They worked outside the home; we worked at home: children, cleaning, and managing the household. Unrecognized work, but work nonetheless. They came home to find everything ready: clean children, a clean kitchen, dinner prepared. Now, both parents work outside the home, but the reality is that we still do much more work at home: we shoulder 75% of a family's unpaid labor. And this exhausts and embitters us.
We need to say even louder and clearer that we cannot and do not want to take on the majority of these tasks, and that, moreover, we need time to live better lives. Being an empowered woman doesn't mean doing everything; it means knowing when to stop and choosing wisely what to fight for: we need a reduction in working hours for everyone. Spending 40 hours a week at work is neither productive nor healthy.
The 37.5 weekly hours proposed by the Spanish government, and were overthrown by Junts, It's an insufficient band-aid. The goal should be a 35-hour (real) work week, at least to allow us some breathing room. Both mothers and fathers would have more free time to divide responsibilities, and reduced working hours would be lessened without penalizing women. It would be another step towards equality, which is still very, very far from being even within reach, because we don't want more time for childcare, but for living.