Caring for kids over career

Women often have to choose between a rewarding profession and fulfilment of motherhood. Few manage to resolve the dilemma without guilt or regret, unless aided by understanding families, supportive workplaces and good hired help.
MUMBAI: Motherhood is understandably deemed to be a turning point in a woman’s life. And while it remains a key point of recognition for several women, the joys of motherhood, especially in a metro like Mumbai, often compete with that of another identity—a professional achiever.However, given that parenting is for the most part, still shouldered by a woman, many women give up their rewarding careers for motherhood. Are they happier for it? Does giving up a career affect a woman’s sense of ‘being’ as a productive member of society, or conversely, is being a fulltime mother ‘unproductive work’?
Women’s activist and lawyer Flavia Agnes admits despite Mumbai being a cosmopolitan metro that strives to be gender equal, the choice of career v/s motherhood is still essentially, a woman’s to make.
“Giving up a career comes from a combination of both, self-guilt or the pressure of wanting to be a good mother and figuring out the logistics of having a maid, arranging a crèche or having parents or parents-in-law take care of the child. While the husband may be an integral part of this decision-making since he, in many instances, brings in the fatter of the two salaries, the decision logically tilts to the woman opting to stay home and take care of the baby.”
Psychiatrist Dr Aditya Tiwari says the decision for a woman to completely quit a career has physiological consequences if there is a dilemma about wanting to give it up to begin with. “Guilt is never a good thing. Some of my patients, who are new moms, feel pangs of guilt about not being a good mother, if they choose to continue in their professions, or for not being someone that did justice to their professional abilities, if they decide to give up working. Either situation results in disillusionment which reflects itself in psychosomatic conditions like migraines, chronic backache, thyroid or sleep-related disorders, that are often seen to be pregnancy-related per se, but are more often than not, symptoms of a larger mental tussle that has not quite been resolved,” Dr Tiwari says.
“After I quit my job, I experienced mixed feelings. The loss of economic independence was tough to accept. While I did enjoy the initial days of being there for my baby, I started missing out on having a set schedule made on my own terms,” said a 40-year-old woman, who gave up a glowing career in banking when she had a child in her late twenties. She says she truly made peace with it when she now sees that her kids fare better in school because she’s been around for them. Or that she doesn’t have to tear her hair apart, juggling multiple schedules that would’ve involved her own professional career, that of her household and of her children. “It isn’t fun when I fill up a form that I put down ‘homemaker’ as an occupation knowing there’s more to me. But I know that I could not have done justice to both roles and I don’t regret the decision now at all,” she says.
Mumbai also has its share of mommies who make a clean sweep and decide to give up having to report to a workplace without living to regret it, at all. Now a stay-at-home mom, Mytri Warrior earlier freelanced for an ad film production company. While she loved the dynamism and hectic nature of her work, she says, “I always knew I could, and would, give it up once the baby came along. But it is a very personal choice to make. I was very clear about this before I had my baby, and that made it easier for me to make the switch. It’s important that a woman make up her mind before getting pregnant. That is the key.”
Her thought also finds resonance with Akriti Singh, a former textile designer, now in her late thirties and a mother of two. “It is easier to make these decisions before one decides to get pregnant. I had prepared myself, not only for the financial crunch I would face, but also for the fact that there would be days I would miss making professional decisions. But I also knew that being a mother would come with its own set of challenges which I was prepared to take on. Sadly, we don’t typically attach monetary value to what a woman does to take care of her home, but I know it matters. I see it in my kids’ faces everyday. I can always get back to a profession any time I choose, but it’s something I’ve chosen not to do,” she rounds off.