Why are career-focused women being written off as bad parents? :My ideas to the question asked by Team Sulekha

Why are career-focused women being written off as bad parents? :My ideas to the question asked by Team Sulekha

Even though modern women are a champion of free ideas; they are often victims of scathing social issues like choosing a career over a family. From the point of view of Women, I see not a thin or nebulous line, but a thick line of discrimination underlying the veins of society. Women are expected to be a certain stereotyped version of themselves: to cook, to clean, and to pet themselves and most importantly to produce babies. Many women in today’s society choose to be different: they prefer a career, a job and a way to be independent over a family life. And I see no wrong in it. If a man is the corner stone of a household? Why can’t a woman be one? But posing this question will usher in a series of furtive glances from the society and they will bring in issues, like a careerist woman is a bad parent or a woman who see a life beyond her chores doesn’t have parenting skills. Now, let me ratiocinate the point of view from modern Indian perspective. Indian women today are independent in all aspects, they have equal rights, freedom of speech and expression, they are well to do and they are living a cosmopolitan life. But then, why is it that we see this idea, or what ever it is, in our daily sulekha digest, “Your call: Why are career-focused women being written off as bad parents? A recent study says that working mothers lose custody of their children in divorce courts?” The study whoever conducted it shows that despite social revolutions of women and their innate metamorphosis, the basic idea that women should be women is still the same. It further states, women who choose to stand on their own feet and disregards influence of men are “bad” women. And such bad women are inhumane and they fail to take care of their babies, partly because they are busy and partly because their career is important. Now my question is do we think the other way round? Are we comfortable in conducting a study where our male counterparts do not have the time or incentives to take care of their kids that in the long run most of those men turn out to be “bad” fathers who read the business headlines at the break of dawn rather than change the nappies of their babies? If our idea is that men are meant to behave in a certain way: they have to be careerist, solid and authoritative. What happens if he is otherwise, if he indulges in effeminate works like if he has interests in household chores, or if he likes interior decoration or Food Network? I mean what happens if he is different, would he be the pariah of our state. May be not, since we may say that he chooses to be that way, he chooses to be different for a change. But when it comes to women choosing to be different we have a box full of labels to paste. The very fact that women should watch ‘Sex and the City’ and be interested in “Beauty and Grooming” or better in “shopping” is another lame label. I think ‘Sex and the City’ has more social connotations than we think it has. It is a hemisphere of women, where we can and we are different. We can be whoever we want-- a foxy Samantha or a sober Charlotte. We can choose a career and raise a baby like Miranda or we can write a book like Carry Bradshaw. We have a lot of options you see, options we otherwise don’t get, that is why we all love ‘sex and the City’. And those four ladies are just reflections of female wishes and aspirations, be it sexual or social. But even those ladies have a label on them; there is no running way from that. So the ideas that career focused make belief women aren’t perfect either, poses a threat to us. Let me ask you the question, many of our sulekha ladies are well established in society. Did it ever happen to you that you have seen raised eyebrows when you tried to cut the umbilical chord that connects family and office? You may have, or may have not. It’s like the modern idea of racism; you see and hate but don’t tell. We all are part of this same lame ocean where we are but the daily specimens of dust, polished, skilled but underneath discriminated against. So, I feel it is nothing but the idea of discrimination, the idea of labeling women which is the main cause for career-focused women to be called bad parents. A woman who can take care of her job is bound to be responsible and focused. How can then a perfectly rational individual say that she cannot take care of family and kids? To make up for her time she may do more special things for her kids than the father does. So, who is now the bad parent? Though many kids fumble about their parents not having time for them and that made them delinquent or social drop outs; I believe to eradicate such feelings both the parents should sort out the issues. They could spend the whole weekend with the child, and talk to him or her at the end of the day or in the evening. Daily communications will clear the kid’s ideas about life, and prevent him from being a social drop-out or a delinquent for that matter. But in most cases, at least according to Bollywood, who does this communication thing? It is the working mother. Yet, at the end of the day, it is she who has to be under the social microscope not the father of the child. Finally, what happens is that women give up their job and career and frown at the twilight of their life saying, “You know I had a career, I destroyed it for my son or daughter, what a sacrifice!” Who would acknowledge the sacrifice, Nobody. Not even the baby! Well, honey that’s how life is. So who are we hiding from but ourselves? We are afraid to be vociferous against the age old ideas of society, which need a tyrannical Amazon to be destroyed once in for all. A woman is a corner stone of a well-balanced society; she has all her rights, responsibilities and wishes. So I think if society needs to progress, much more importance should be given to logical ideas and ratiocination of the role of women in modern society. Else, we will forever smother in the social fire of discrimination and we will see many more studies conducted everyday showing the pitfalls of working women “women being written off as bad” wives, mothers, persons in general, and many more. Women such ideas will point to us indirectly that a woman shouldn’t think of a "career". If such a think happens, we will then not only lose the custody of our kids but also the custody of free, independent spirits.




By Barnali Saha


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