Juggling Hustling mother-work-hood

My first time away from my child, was when he was just over 9 months old. I left him for 10 days in the able hands of his loving and capable father, two affectionate and hands-on grandfathers, a caring nanny who was present 10 am to 4 pm on weekdays, and retinue of my friends and cousins who would check-in occasionally. Yes, I have a lot of support, I acknowledge the privilege. I was away on a field visit setting up and running experiments in Ladakh, with shaky internet, making video calls back home as often as I could. When I came back, my son barely took notice, and continued to play with his toys as I coddled him endlessly. Interestingly enough, I received plentiful unsolicited mixed response from different people in retrospect. Ranging from admiration to admonition, I realised that I was not raising my child in my little world, but in plain view of society. While this sounds obvious, this experience was a strong reminder of the fact that mothers are held to high standards. They need to be top performers at home, juggling the juggle and at work, hustling the hustle. When one looks at someone who is a top performer at work, they are the model professional. That is who you want to be at work. When one sees a person who is a devoted mother, father, spouse, friend, always available, diligent in their domestic life, house spic and span, cook par excellence, they become the golden standard of how one should be at home. When one sees an avid traveler, creator, maker, they set the bar on how we want to pursue our hobbies. The trouble is that we want to roll all these different people into one. It is like expecting one person to win the gold in track, gymnastics, weight lifting, and tennis. Each sphere of our lives takes different skill sets, they take time and effort. We cannot be the best chef, professional, artist, mother, spouse, and so on. Let's stop elevating one-sided excellence and normalizing it as a lifestyle. We can bring our whole best selves to the table. There will parts of us, chipped, broken, scratched, dented, and we bring it all to the table. There will be days when being a good professional comes at the expense of being a good mother, being a good mother comes at the expense of being a good friend, being a good friend comes at the expense of ... And that has to be okay.

#worklifebalance #motherhood