It’s a confusing time to be a mom. Debates rage about whether working mothers can ‘have it all,’ or if that’s just a myth. Stay-at-home moms are either venerated as doing the ‘toughest job in the world’ or accusingly asked what they ‘do all day at home.’ On one hand, we’re told that women are throwing away their education and career prospects if they give up their jobs, and on the other, that they’re failing as moms if they don’t breastfeed until the age of two. Everyone has an opinion on motherhood — relatives, the neighbourhood aunties, friends and colleagues, the government, corporate honchos.
But in the midst of all the noise, middle and upper-middle-class mothers in urban India are quietly making the choices they need to make for themselves. The choices aren’t always easy, and depend on a host of factors such as financial stability, family or employer support, and availability of child care. But the difference is that these women in their 20s and 30s have more options available to them than ever before — greater exposure to different parenting philosophies, more freedom to plan their entry into motherhood, more flexible work options, online and off. They’re trying to figure out what their needs are, what sort of mothers they want to be, and how they can balance the two, rather than follow any standard template of motherhood.
So here are the stories of three such moms and their choices — a stay-at-home mom, a working mom and a mom who works from home.
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When her son Advait was born in August 2013, Bayiravi Mani Mangaonkar was already working from home. Or rather, baking from home. She’d launched Bee the Baker, her home bakery for theme-based decorative cakes, in 2012. Around the time she had her baby, she was making 20 to 30 cakes a week. She was back at work soon after, when Advait was just over a month.
“It wasn’t bad to start with,” she says. Bayiravi had discovered the joys of baby-wearing early on, and her newborn would sleep, tied snugly against her, as she worked. But it got harder as he grew older. “He’d be teething and clingy, or get restless and want to move around.”
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By the time Advait was 10 months old, she was working only after he slept — from 10.30 p.m. to three or four a.m. — “with him waking up every few hours.” The hardest part wasn’t even the exhaustion: it was the stress of keeping up with the orders coming in.
So, as of last month, Bee the Baker is on a break. “I’ll get back to it when he’s a bit older,” she says. “Besides, I’ve started a new venture, and right now, it’s what I’m more passionate about.” That new venture is Kol Kol, a baby carrier designed by her using Indian hand-woven fabrics, and marketed and sold online. She stumbled upon baby-wearing quite by accident, when she decided to try out a second-hand baby carrier someone had given her. Soon, she was asking friends and relatives from the U.S. and U.K. to bring her samples of different ergonomic carriers. “I never indulged in clothes or toys too much; carriers were my sole parental indulgence.” she laughs. She became an outspoken advocate of baby-wearing, whether with her breast-feeding support group (she still breastfeeds Advait, and helps other moms with breastfeeding issues) or even random people on the street. “So I thought, why not create one that had all the features I loved?”
As before, most of the work for Kol Kol gets done after Advait sleeps at night. “But Kol Kol is less labour intensive than Bee the Baker. It’s mostly research, testing new designs, and monitoring work at the workshop. And I’m able to just sit and play with him without worrying about order deadlines.”
That, at the end of the day, is her priority. “I could make things easier for myself and get more done. But I want to give him good food every few hours, so I’m looking up recipes online. I don’t want him to watch cartoons, so I’m researching ways to engage a toddler. And I don’t hire a nanny.”
Aparna Rao, 37, Chennai
When Aparna Rao became pregnant with Jaanvi, giving up her research consultancy job felt like a natural progression. “I was ready to move on to the next phase of life,” she says. “Motherhood took precedence.”
She and her husband Sanjay took a conscious decision that she would stay home until the baby was older. “If we could afford to, we decided to manage on a single income.” Although she had previously worked from home for some time, that wasn’t an option she considered. “Whatever I take on, I want to do full justice to it,” she says. “I didn’t want to deprive myself of any aspect of motherhood.” That’s why they also decided not to hire any help for child care. “I wanted to be a hands-on mom. I’m hands-on with our six dogs, so why would it be any different with my baby?”
That’s right; six dogs. Aparna and Sanjay are both animal lovers; in fact, that’s what drew them together. So their home is filled with rescued animals — including, at various points, a squirrel and a crow.
The pair carefully planned their parenthood, waiting nearly five years after marriage to have Jaanvi. “We decided to travel and explore as many places as we could,” she says. Then, they made sure their dogs were settled. “Once you have a child, it’s tough to manage a new pup. SoWe waited till our youngest dog was out of the puppy stage.”
Now her focus is entirely on motherhood. “This is actually a selfish choice. I want every precious moment with my baby. I don’t want a nanny or my mom telling me how she took her first step or said her first word.”
It has, however, been a steep learning curve. “We learn ludicrous things in school like algebra. No one teaches you to be a mom.” And nothing prepares you for being one 24/7. “People say you won’t have time for yourself, but you don’t fully understand until you experience it, and even going to the bathroom becomes a luxury!”
In fact, when people tell her being a fulltime mom is a tough job, she corrects them: “It’s not a job. There’s no time off, no pay except seeing your child healthy and happy, and no HR person telling you, ‘great job!’”
But, two years on, she has no regrets(“even if I haven’t combed my hair in three days!”). “I wouldn’t exchange it for any pay-scale hike at work. I know I’ll never get these moments back.” “Right now my child needs me. When she’s older and more independent, I’ll take something up again.”
Namita D’Souza Davar, 31, Mumbai
When Namita D’Souza Davar had her first baby, she was all set to give up her hospital job. “I felt like I was the only one who could care for her. She was so small and vulnerable,” she recalls.
But when Natalia was just two months old, Namita got an interview for a new job that was just five minutes from home, and with an understanding boss who was a mother herself. “Since my in-laws live just five minutes away, I started wondering I should continue.”
One of the reasons was the niche nature of her job. “I’m a medical microbiologist, and I look after specialised testing such as HIV, TB, and hepatitis. If I took a break, I’d lose out to younger people.”
Still, it was not an easy decision. “Natalia adjusted quickly, but it was emotionally very difficult for me. With my son Dwayne, I was more relaxed, because Natalia had managed well.”
With both children, she waited until four months after birth before returning to work. “I was able to keep working through both pregnancies, so I used all 12 weeks of maternity leave after the baby was born. Both times I extended by a month, so I could exclusively breastfeed till four months, and introduce their first solids before returning to work.”
The hardest part since then has been ensuring quality time with her kids in the evenings. “I’d go home and still have cooking and housework to do. It was exhausting and I felt like I was neglecting them, like I was always in a rush.”
When Dwayne turned one, she hired someone to help with the cooking, and to help her mother-in-law with the kids (who “fight like Tom & Jerry!”). “Now that I have less domestic work, I can take them to the park or play area,” she says. Still, she wishes she could work a five-day week. “Natalia cried when I left her on Saturday mornings, and I felt so upset! Unfortunately, that’s often the busiest day at the hospital.”
What she appreciates is the time she gets at work for intellectual activities such as reading and writing scientific articles. “I know if I was at home, I’d be interrupted non-stop.” And it doesn’t hurt that she gets a pay check, allowing her the freedom to make impulse purchases for the kids.
But when vacation time comes around, she always finds herself wishing she could spend more time with them. “My sister says the solution is to become a professor,” says Namita. “Let’s see!”