How did Mahisa do all this?

In my new novel, 'Deprivations', Mahisa works so hard but she is constantly thinking about finding her son.

She does so well in her jobs she gets repeatedly promoted.  Then of course she's helping people escape the City.  Within all that she searches for her child.

And you know what?

So many women do pretty well similar things.

There's a friend of mine and she's influenced me in so many parts of my life.  At the moment she's doing voluntary work for people who need support.

I think sometimes some people don't feel comfortable around those who do so much for others.

We're OK watching it on TV but we don't want to feel guilty when somebody right in front of us is doing that.  Like some guys feel doing all the house cleaning and the looking after children etc. etc. is a woman's work.  It gets them out of actually doing anything to help.  Lazy?  Insecure?  (I'm not excluding myself from this.) 

I remember hearing somewhere on the radio I think about how men can't physically do things like ironing.  But I'll tell you this:  my dad taught me how to iron.  Why?  Because he had to iron when he was in the army.  His army formal uniform had to be perfect otherwise he'd be in trouble with his superiors.

He taught me a lot of other things as well.  Plus things that he experienced in the army.  He was fighting in the Malayan conflict - the forgotten war.

He saw so many things.  Some nice but many were horrible.  He told me when he came back he had difficulties in coping with things.  He was sometimes violent and self-destructive.  He was never violent with anyone else, certainly not with women.  He was a gentleman (and he taught me that).  These days we'd call such difficulties 'post traumatic stress disorder'.  But he didn't have any help at the time.

I think sometimes being aware of people (often women) doing so much for us and being thankful - I mean genuinely thankful - is often a real help to those who do so much for us.

I'm not saying don't do anything yourself but don't be insecure around those who do more then we do.