<b>Geetanjali Krishna:</b> Babysitting &amp; women's development

The other day, I was standing at the security counter at a mall waiting to have my bag checked. The bag checker was unusually slow and we were getting impatient. Just then, my eyes fell on a scruffy little girl skulking in a corner, holding a crying baby, not more than six months old. An hour later, when I was leaving the mall, I saw the same bag checker outside in a dark corner by the fountains, feeding the baby while the little girl looked on. "I can't keep disappearing like this," the bag checker grumbled. "If my supervisor finds out, I'll get fired!" It turned out that she lived in the settlement behind the mall, and in the absence of any childcare, left her four-month-old to be looked after by her 10-year-old daughter. While waiting for my car, I watched her swiftly swaddle the baby and rush back to her job.

On my way home that day, a question that has long remained unanswered in my mind, reared its head yet again. When economically underprivileged women who really need to earn a living bear children, who looks after them while they're at work? I resolved to ask a few of the women who worked as domestics in the neighbourhood, how they coped and their responses were thought-provoking.

Many left kids as young as two years, home alone, making a series of trips to check on them. "I live in R K Puram and know there are many work opportunities further away that I miss out on. But I have to rush back home to give my young children lunch, and then return to make dinner in the two homes where I work," said Poonam. She's been looking for a full-time job so she could keep her kids near, but has had no luck so far. Most prospective employers, she said, didn't want children living in their servant quarters. "But at least with my money, I can afford to give them milk and eggs twice a week..." she said. Another woman Teresa said that she gave up her job for a few months when her son joined school and needed to be dropped and picked up. "It became so tough to make ends meet that my husband arranged for a van to drop and pick him up. It costs Rs 800 per month, but I've been able to take up a part-time job..." she says. Another woman told me how she had to ask her mother-in-law to pitch in with the children while she worked as a domestic. "She does it with the air of doing me a favour," she cribbed. "But the fact is that without the Rs 7,000 I bring in every month, we would not be able to afford her medicines, or the children's after-school tuitions!"

Most of the women said that their salaries went into providing their children with better nutrition and education. Their incomes, I realised, contributed significantly to the quality of life of their households. Yet, they went to work every day, against all odds. Although government-sponsored Anganwadis, centres for women and children, exist all over Delhi, most of the women I met had never been inside one. Most had no clue if the nearby Anganwadis even offered creche facilities.

These testimonies got me thinking. Why is it that when we talk of educating women and creating job opportunities for them, people like us overlook the fact that one of the biggest obstacles to women's economic empowerment lies closer home? Creches in every Anganwadi could help. Day boarding facilities in government schools could help too. Most of all, we need to recognise that babysitting could be one of the simplest routes towards women's development.