Pandemic Vs Working Moms

It was a one of those warm lazy evenings in Delhi. After a day of work from home, I finally curled up on the living room sofa with my iced tea and Beethoven in the background. Evenings are family time, slow, as they are now, during Covid.

My daughter, six, behaves more like a teen and likes doing her own art, reading her own book, listening to her choice of songs or watching her favorite DIY or cartoons. She is fiercely independent, just like her working mother would like her to be. That gives me a lot of space to explore my own choices during this time.

 Evenings were not so relaxed till even a couple of years back. You could see me struggling, juggling and running helter-skelter in the house running errands for my over active toddler, instructing my cook, picking up laundry, etc. Having my parents staying nearby was a boon but I assumed duties at home, as soon as I stepped in from the front door. As time flew, she grew up and realized that she was the daughter of a working independent mother and whether in awe to be like her mom or per force, she soon became independent herself.

With all these thoughts, I got up to reach for a book to read. Just then the phone rang. Evenings are sacrosanct and I enjoy this solitude with my family. My husband was reading a book himself else he normally makes it a point to put all phones in the house on silent when the family sits together.

Very unwillingly, I got up to pick the phone. It was from an old friend who was the mother of a toddler. A call from her at this time of the day seemed rather strange. This was the rush hour! After exchanging the usual pleasantries, she quickly rushed to the point. I realized from her voice that she was nearing breaking point and needed some help/ advice.

My friend was into business development and had worked for many years before finally choosing to have a child. I had never seen her so excited when she broke the news of her child to us. When her son was born, she was over zealous and her family from both sides supported her a lot too, but only initially. Their families stayed in other cities far away and were not keen to come and stay with her for long periods.

 Just then Covid happened. The world stopped. So did her husband’s office as he was now working from home and she lost her job. Looking after her son, who was now 2 years old, became the centre of her life. But how long could a working woman who was used to calling the shots at work sit at home and do only house hold chores and look after the kid?

Few months into Covid, she started looking for a job again and landed with a work from home opportunity. It was just right for her. Everything was falling in place. Her son was growing up, her husband was home and so he could share the child’s chores and she could be home and still work. Basically, she could start working without feeling guilty. A month into her new WFH life, her maid contracted Covid. That gave them a mighty scare more for the child. Luckily, all was well and the maid was given leave for a month. And then the struggle started. With no one to look after the child, she spoke to her husband for some sharing of chores. Her husband’s work demanded focus full time and he could not partake as much as they thought he could. Initially all was fine but soon her in-laws gave them a surprise visit. With it went a week of work. She could not do anything because she was expected to make good food and be her best self when they were there. With that as a challenge and the child she had to take a week long leave. Meanwhile, she became so overworked that she fell ill. That’s when she set about frantically calling anywhere and everywhere that might be able to offer child care, even just for a week or two. But with child care capacity reduced as a Covid-19 safety precaution, nobody had anything remotely available. After three months of desperately trying to make it work, she was ready to throw in the towel.

Her call was more like a distress call. She needed a nanny real bad. And she wanted to know how I balance my life because she had seen me at work when my daughter was 2 and I hardly ever missed work or showed any signs of anxiety or overwork. But my support system at home was solid with my parents living very close to my home and my mother taking over the child’s responsibility completely when I was not around with the nanny. Our situations were different and we could not be compared.

This pandemic has so far taken the largest toll on women, especially working mothers. The pressure of having to sit at home and work as well as look after all the family members and the child is mammoth. Children, by and large, are getting affected due to quarantines and school closures. Everyone has felt anxious, bored or uncertain at some time.

 The corporate and work-culture will need to practice more compassion during these testing times and maybe even renew their practices, especially keeping the working mothers in mind. Seen first and foremost as breadwinners and not caregivers, when fathers request to work flexibly, they are often viewed positively for helping out at home while still delivering at work.

Mothers, however, are seen first and foremost as caregivers, not breadwinners. Their doing more at home is often assumed to mean that at work they will be delivering less. One in three mothers surveyed has considered downshifting her career, moving to a less demanding role, for example, or leaving the workforce altogether. Making work sustainable would require companies to adjust productivity targets, reset goals, and set realistic deadlines that match the emergency we are collectively living through. Robust paid-leave policies would allow employees to hold on to their job while parenting their children through a pandemic. Overall, the pandemic appears to have produced a unique immediate juggling act for working mothers of school-age children and toddlers alike.

I know women who had to leave their children under 10 years alone at home in order to continue working. There’s also the fact that women are paid much less than men which tends to answer the question of who would quit if there was a crisis. As per experts, the ongoing pandemic is threatening to set back decades of progress that women have made at their professional front. The economy could lose a generation of working mothers.