Do working mothers have it easy when their children have summer holidays?
Best of both worlds Part-time employment helps parents do justice to both home and office
Summer holidays are great fun if you are (a) a child, and you don’t have to see a teacher for the next two months (b) a teacher, and you don’t have to see a child for the next two months. For the rest of mankind, however, it remains a sou
l-searing time…there you are, trying to remain sane at temperatures that threaten to addle the brain, when your kid decides to spend the rest of the evening playing indoor-football, as the terrace is still boiling. Somewhere between the fifth and seventh goal, you lose it…you want to scream, weep, run away or preferably, do it all at once. And if, on top of everything, you’re a working mum, well, what can we say except ‘tch, tch, we deeply sympathise with you?’
Working mums certainly don’t have it easy during their kids vacations; they can’t be around to monitor or manage the kids, take a day off at will to go to the movies, and as for a ‘vacation’, it’s got to be planned, co-ordinated and executed as meticulously as a rocket-launch. Which, of course, is not really surprising given that the three measly weeks of ‘holidays’ in a year have got to be carefully spread over the summer and Christmas breaks, with a few set aside for the ubiquitous family functions and several saved for those inevitable ‘kid’s-come-down-with-a-nasty-bug’ days.
The guilt factor
“I have been working since my son was one, and I must admit that sometimes I feel very guilty about it, especially when he is ill or has school holidays,” says Priya Chowdhary, Tax Assurance Advisor. “Long summer and winter breaks always work on you since you have to either depend on family, friends, sitters or taking time off from work,” says Meera Sarma, who works in the Credit Department.
“It would be an ideal situation for me if I could take off when my children have holidays. Of course, I would not have felt the same if I had some family member at home with my kids, taking care of them when I was away,” says Neeta Bedi, Financial Analyst.
Till recently, it was the thathas and paatis who typically landed this unenviable job; except, we don’t really see the next generation of grandparents pitching in like before, given that they have their own
lives/jobs and may not be able to spare two whole months each year to play child-minder! And it’s moments like this that tempts many mums to actively consider other options – part-time employment, jobs that offer flexi-timings, or freelancing…
“I do flexi-timings, and it has been quite beneficial,” says Priya, adding that it’s awful when you get emotional vibes from your child like ‘why are you not there at mummy time?’ (the time when all mummies come to pick up their children) or ‘I want to be with you all the time’. “Flexi-hours can definitely help tide over some of these problems,” she says.
Friendly policies
Meera, who has a part-time job and a now grown-up child, feels the working environment today is far better than what it used to be. “I’ve had a working mum and I think she had a more challenging time than what I do now. Now you find most employers have employee-friendly policies and are more empathetic towards parents.”
And as for freelancing jobs, there are plenty of them to choose from, the only drawback being unless you’re really disciplined, and resist the temptation to browse/ snooze/drift around, you’re not going to get much done.
Now, all these concepts are rapidly gaining momentum in the West and it’s quite easy to understand why. With little family support, and almost no household help (we’re getting there soon…), parents have to run the whole show themselves, and they’re able to do so efficiently only if either or both of them opt out of mainstream, full-time employment. Besides, they do have some brilliant options available out there…in the U.K. for instance, there are jobs that coincide with the school term dates.
Agreed, these openings aren’t exactly for Investment Bankers, but hey, if you can have gainful employment, and be around your kids, then why not? Agrees Neeta. “If I were a decision maker, I will certainly introduce jobs that coincide with the school year.”
Now, won’t that be really nice? Two whole months of respite from the daily commute during the height of summer, two entire months to spend with the kids, 60 days of nothing but ‘I’m so bored’, ‘can I go on the computer?’, ‘shall we order pizza now?’, ‘look, he punched me’, ‘give me the remote’…What fun eh?
APARNA KARTHIKEYAN
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