My Dad has a special dining room chair that only he can sit in. The regular chairs are plain, old, and without ass cushioning, but my Dad has a fancy chair with a large cushion and a carved design on the back. It’s a few inches higher than all the other dining room chairs. His wife bought it for his birthday. It looks like the kind of chair that tells you who runs the room. Even the height of it seems to give him a little more authority.

When my Dad comes home from work around 5PM or so, the house is clean and a pot of tea is ready for him. He drinks his tea and plays with the kids or reads the paper while my stepmom cooks dinner. She cooks dinner at least five nights a week. Everything she does is to make his life as comfortable and relaxing as possible. By the time he walks in, most of the hard work is already finished. The whole setup is meant to keep the home running smoothly.

The concept of “me time” is foreign to her; it’s family time twenty-four hours a day. It’s hard even for me to imagine her asking my Dad to watch the kids while she goes out with friends. When I cook my own meals, my stepmom likes to clean up after me as I’m still cooking. “Back in Iran, the man doesn’t do any cleaning,” she says to me. She was taught this from a young age. American public schools have taught me to clean up after myself, so it still feels strange to watch.

I know what you are wondering. “Is she happy?” I can tell you with very high confidence that she is extremely happy. Happiness is relative, based on perspective and expectation. My stepmom does not seem to wonder about bigger questions. Are the kids fed? Is the house clean? Is the spouse happy? Then life is great. For a lot of my peers and countrymen, that simply is nowhere close to being enough. They want more, even when they already have plenty.