Saturday, February 6, 2010

Stay-At-Home-Mom

I recently read an article "stay-at-home-mom", which talked about how essential it is for the woman to be there for her children when they are growing up, and that women professionals often end up neglecting their home and family. Indeed there can be no two opinions on the importance of the mother's role in the life of her children. I am an ardent champion of what the writer had called a "stay-at-home- mom". But I also realise that she (the writer of the article) and I are among those fortunate women who have a supportive family and the satisfaction of a comfortable life.
However life is not easy for most of the females out there who
are slogging day in and day out. They may have got used to their daily
grind, but it is their tremendous courage that they bear it all with a smile, while balancing a home and a career.

It is said that the ordinary homemaker has to come face-to-face with what is called the "empty nest syndrome". That is when the children grow up and lead their separate life.
I wonder if it is only the home maker who misses her children? Let us accept this reality. Even the working women go through this phase of lonliness. When children grow up and take on the challenges in life, at some time or other they have
to move out of the wings of their parents and experience life on their
own. It is their privilege as it was ours a couple of decades back.

It is now taken for granted that girls will opt for a career and most
women, specially in the urban areas are taken to be career women.
Therefore people often are surprised when I tell them that I have
never been a career woman. One of my cousins who is about ten years
younger to me had once wondered with much sympathy to me as to why I
never thought of a career. But perhpas I was an odd one in my time too
as I never planned a future while the rest of the girls in my class
would be busy preparing for entrance tests of all kinds under the sun!

Having said this, I think it is necessary for girls today to be
financially independent. It is their basic safeguard. It is the best
gift parents can give to their daughters. It gurantees them confidence
and security (at least financial) and thus respect too. In case of a
failed marriage or the loss of her husband, she does not become a
burden on the male family members or a prey to the lustful ideas of
other men around her. And in her marriage too usually a woman
professional is much more in command of her life than the "ordinary
housewife".

No comments: