“How can you handle a child and a job? You are a mother now. You must devote all your time to your child. And what will happen to the house in the meantime?”
A friend of mine has heard this line all too often. She faced enormous pressure to quit her job the day she found out she was pregnant. A job that was only grudgingly accepted by her all too conservative in-laws even before the baby, because she is a married woman. ‘Married women in our house don’t work. They take care of the house,’ was a constant refrain or call it complaint, if you will.
Working women are often made to feel guilty about the fact that they are spending time away from the baby. While this problem exists in some measure around the world, it is particularly widespread in India. The onus of a happy, healthy family and a clean house is always the woman’s responsibility. Hiring help is seen as a sign of weakness and incompetence. “If she had to give the kids to a nanny, why have them at all?”
But my friend stuck it out despite the pressure. She herself came from a family of two working parents and she knew since she had turned out alright, her kid will too.
And today, a Harvard study has validated that line of thought by proving that children of working mothers are more likely to be successful. While daughters of such moms were more likely to be holding supervisory positions, sons of working moms were likely to grow up better equipped to take care of family and do household chores.
“What I take away is that employed mothers create an environment in which their children’s attitudes on what is appropriate for girls to do and what is appropriate for boys to do is changed,” says Kathleen McGinn, a professor at Harvard Business School and the lead author of the study.
In others words, in homes of working mothers, there are no gender specific roles. Only equal division of labour.
And a study like this could be a shot in the arm for the equal rights movement. Consider this – a whopping 16 crore women in India between ages 15-59 are confined to their houses to doing domestic duties. While some give in to family and society pressure, for the others it’s an employment system that fails them when it comes to maternity benefits, even what is legally due to them. Most Indian companies feel that a working mother is a liability for them.
So the next time somebody tries to guilt you into quitting your job, you know what to tell them
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