Mommy Wars in India

Welcome to the "On Balance" guest blog. Every Tuesday, "On Balance" features the views of a guest writer. It could be your neighbor, your boss, your most loved or hated poster from the blog, or you! Send me your original, unpublished entry (300 words or fewer) for consideration. Writers need to use their full names. Obviously, the topic should be something related to balancing your life.

By Priyadarshini Narendra

I'm a "working mom" from India with two kids under five. The issues of "balance" are the same here as everywhere else in the world, and I would like to put in my two paise (cents) on the subject.

I've lived both lives, and neither is better. I had to quit my work in marketing during my first pregnancy due to complications. For six months after my son arrived, I stayed home because I couldn't face the thought of leaving him. Even though I was bored and longing for adult company, the stimulation of work, and of course, my own money.

Eventually, a half day job fell into my lap and I thought I'd try it out. Initially leaving him was hard but I got used to it, and he got used to having me go to office. After my daughter was born, I began working full time in management consulting. It's been just about a year since then.

I have times when I'm so busy I don't get home when the kids are awake. I hate that. When I make a good presentation or a client likes my work, I love that. There are days when my husband is flying into town and I'm flying out and we meet at the airport. I miss PTA meetings. When my son has vacation from school and I have to go off to the office, it hurts. I like having money I can call my own. I enjoy the arguments and debates that form my work. Every day, my feelings regarding working vs. staying at home change. On good days, I think -- Yes! I can do it. On bad days, I type out my resignation letter.

I'm someone who doesn't fully buy the 'quality time' argument so I have guilt pangs about the quantity time the kids aren't getting. But I also think only quantity time doesn't cut it. When I look at my kids objectively, I don't see two neglected kids. I see kids who get a little less time with their parents, but whose parents are involved with them.

My husband is wonderfully supportive and does tons of stuff with and for them. He's home in time to read our son bedtime stories at least four days out of seven. I'm a poor sleeper who can't get back to sleep if interrupted so if either of the kids gets up in the night, he does night duty, and has done so ever since the kids were about nine months old. On weekends, we both take the kids to the park or elsewhere, and we try to go together to all school events. If I have to travel my husband stays in town, even if he has to postpone his travel and vice versa. We take turns staying home when the kids are ill. He attends PTA meetings by himself when I'm traveling. On my days off, we all paint together. I teach my son the names of all the plants in our garden. We have fun.

In terms of household management, that usually falls in my lap though we do the monthly grocery shopping together.
We have two helpers at home for the house and the childcare. I wanted older women who had kids or even grandkids of their own; one is in her early fifties, the other one in her mid thirties. Even if they are a little less energetic than younger caregivers, they are genuinely loving and patient with our kids.

My in-laws and my parents are highly supportive of the fact that I work. My mother-in-law was a working woman, a professor in college until her recent retirement. My mother always wanted to be a working woman but wasn't for most of her life, so both my parents were keen that my sister and I be well educated and financially independent. Of course, at times they do feel the pressure and stress of a two-working-parent household are too high. But most of the time they're willing to pitch in and help out in any way they can, including keeping an eye on the kids and the helpers.

However, ultimately it doesn't matter whether you work or not, or how much or how little help you have -- it's how you feel about the trade-offs. I've found motherhood to be one debate that has no single resolution. Each one of us has to work it out for herself. And I'm not even sure you've won it even with yourself, because the feelings towards the decision ebb and flow with everything that happens (at least they do for me.)

And so I've decided to take it one day at a time. This doesn't sound like a Hollywood -- or Bollywood -- crescendo of epiphany. But it works for me. So far.


Priyadarshini Narendra lives with her family in Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi.

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  December 4, 2007; 7:10 AM ET  | Category:  Guest Blogs
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