Improve Your English: English in Everyday Life

Impr
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our Englis
h: Englis
h in Ev
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of the kids wasn’t so bad.” So they’re, you know, some of 
’em
are changing, some of ’em aren’t. But, uh, who knows 
who’s 
gonna
sort that out?
5. BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY
I-I don’t know that I balance it that well. I think I kind 
of 
swing back and forth
, um, pouring too much of my 
energy maybe i-in, more of my energy than is reason-
able into my job for a period of time, and then swinging 
back and being very, very, uh, insistent on spending extra 
time with my family. So maybe in, I like to think that 
in the long run, it balances out, but it’s true that there 
are moments when you realize that you’ve spent all your 
time on work things and you have hardly seen your fam-
ily. Um, I-I think that’s probably symptomatic of the way 
that it is for working mothers in the country in general. 
I-I’ve-I’ve, you know, everyone’s heard the stories of how 
it’s so much better in more progressive countries, the 
countries that have more progressive laws for working 
mothers. It’s just, um, it-it’s-it’s challenging here. I-I think 
that everyone tries to do their best at it, and my way isn’t 

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The Role of W
ome
n
53
the same way as everybody’s else’s but, um, there’s always 
room for improvement, so it’s one of the areas that I’m-
I’m still working on, balancing a little bit more equitably.
6. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES 
MAN:
As I said, I think women work much harder here, 
and, of course, they have, uh, more rights here. Th
ey have 
freedom of speech. I mean, they-they have more inde-
pendence here, they have more money here, uh, but, uh, 
they work too-too much here. I mean, uh, as I said, doing 
from laundry, housework, house chores, I mean, they are 
too much. I mean, by the t—, I-I have seen my wife virtu-
ally doing nothing in India to doing everything here, so. 
Women, I mean, of course, she is much more indepen-
dent, she doesn’t have to ask me ever because she does 
her own job, she has her own money. She can just walk in 
and buy anything and 
trash it
next day. I mean, nobody 
is going to ask a question why she did that. Lot of inde-
pendence, I mean, uh, and they see, the women around 
here have lot of, uh, independence themselves, there’s no 
cultural ba—, uh, barriers, there’s no, I mean, the best 
thing about America is that you’ve all kind of people 
from all over the world, they live here together, harmoni-
ously. And, uh, the women back home in India, they are 
like, uh, men are the head of the family, so if-if my child 
is born, the certifi cate will carry my-my name—my son’s 
name—so birth certifi cate will have my name. But same 
thing, if it is here, the mother’s name will be there, so 
it’s-it’s a two diff erent worlds altogether. Women, I think, 
uh, they work much harder, but I think Indian women 
here, they’re happier because they get something they 
can never think of in India—independence, yeah.
My mother could never say, uh, anything to my father. 
Uh, my mother had to pray to God that he says, “Let’s go 

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