To walk the fine balance

SOCIETY

I suppose, all of us cherish a few dreamy minutes in our everyday routines much more than we do the other time spent "doing" things. For many, these could be the first few sips of sweet, adrak-chai or energising coffee in the morning.

For others, these are moments spent just after waking up each day, still lolling in bed. I, for my part, love waking up to the (faint) chants of prayer emanating from a school in the vicinity.

These imbue me with a sense of calm and peace. But even more than these precious minutes of quiet, what I am particular about is the time spent unwinding in the evenings after getting back from work. There's a sense of closure in these moments. Battles have been fought, traffic braved and the public face can finally be put aside.

For a working mother, however, this is an idyllic time whose boundaries are forever under siege. Mother to an energetic toddler, engaged in full-time work, I feel under greater pressure than ever before to give up the luxury of such "self indulgence".

In the absence of reliable daycare in India, professionally-run places where you can pay up and expect decent service in return, most professionals like me need to depend on kindly kin or untrained (and a lot of times unreliable) domestic staff to keep an eye on our children and tend to them in our absence.

But such support systems have their inherent stresses. Leaving my child with my mother, for instance, is one of the best possible alternatives available to women like me. It means that I am not stressing about the child's security and well-being while I go about my business.

On the other hand, this also means learning to live under a sense of constant obligation and the accompanying complications. For example, when my toddler is handed back to me with alacrity upon my return without a word about how my day went, never mind a cup of tea, it is a situation I must learn to handle with grace, without a complaint. And if I feel guilt upon delaying the pick-up time in order to catch a coffee with friends or see a play, there's nothing to be done about it.

Because, fact is, I am imposing on another person's goodwill. And this is merely the state-of-mind bit that doesn't take into account the sheer physical endurance needed to walk the fine balance.

So how can things be eased for people like us? Daycare centres, corporate-supported or close to one's place of work, would be the answer. But with women constituting just 6 per cent of the total workforce in corporate houses, this will probably take a long time coming.

Another option could be to encourage teens and young adults in the neighbourhood to volunteer for baby sitting, paid-for, of course, in their spare time.

But this seems like another uphill task involving, at the very least, a change in our mindsets. Finally, an idea to enterprising women: here's a business opportunity waiting to be grabbed by the courageous few. Go for it! Please.