By Madhurima Ghosh –
A woman has many roles to play in life, the major ones being a daughter, a wife and a mother. The role of a mother is specially crucial as a life right from its embryonic stage, becomes dependent on the mother. Once a woman conceives her life style, thought process and movement changes for ever as in every step she has to keep the consideration of the baby who is now associated with her.
Toughest challenge in this scenario is faced by the working ladies. Women who have delivered nothing but excellence throughout their career, suddenly gets confronted by questions like “Do you want a child or you want your career”. Choosing one of them is hard and balancing both of them together is not easy.
The major reason for this is women face lot of complications after conceiving, often physical issues can demand bed rest throughout the tenure or frequent food consumption is required for proper baby growth or even sitting for long can affect the baby. Moreover post-delivery an infant requires 24 hours attendance so the mother needs long leaves until her baby becomes stable. This might make her miss a promotion or receive a poor rating at work. So a woman has to give a lot of thought before proceeding with motherhood. Even if she somehow survives balancing her pregnancy with work, balancing childcare with work post delivery becomes a different struggle altogether. Taunts from colleagues for not giving enough time to work, along with suffering from guilt for leaving the child with parents or maid and not being able to give enough time, care to the baby becomes daily turmoil which often ends with the biggest dilemma- Baby or work?
Even though bringing a child into this world is a joint decision of both parents but somehow the sacrifices are mostly expected from mother. They are the ones disproportionately handling child care and household chores along with job responsibilities. From sneaking out of office meeting to attend a parent teachers meeting to leaving her child alone for finishing an urgent piece of work, whatever she does is never enough. This continuous chase for bringing balance and guilt of not giving best to the child often makes a women think “Shall I opt out from my work to raise my baby?”
A mother is expected to work like she doesn’t have a child and a professional is expected to raise children as if she doesn’t work, but what no body understand is both the identities are her own. Just like work is her aspiration, baby is her happiness. She can not give 100% in both areas and need a little help to maintain good balance.
Companies can help a working mother by providing them-
Little comfortable chairs during her pregnancy days
If possible work from home for the pregnancy duration
Proper maternity leaves so that she can take care of her infant
Little flexible work schedule so that she can nourish her baby
Child care leave so that her personal leaves don’t get exhausted for baby related emergencies
Reporting officers can be little considerate to understand that a child is waiting at home so should not burden her unnecessarily
Families can help a working mother by-
Supportively taking care of the baby when mother is out for work
Taking turns to care baby at night so that both parents get balanced sleep
By distributing the household chores proportionately
Alternatively attend school related activities
Taking turns to help the kid with studies
Statistics says majority of women resign after becoming mothers which is extremely disappointing. A mother always having to sacrifice is disheartening. A little help from the world and family and no working mother would have to go through this dilemma. Hopefully scenario gets better with time and Cheers to all the mothers who survived this dilemmaand succeeded to continue both gracefully.