Ladies in general and working mothers in particular are an awe and inspiration to me. They are magnificent and doing a multitude of tasks - multi tasking , parallel processing and managing expectations of a score of people at home and office all at the same time. When I look up at the so called career ladder at the organisation that I work and my contacts in general; not many ladies I know are functioning at their full potential at work ( or home which I can vouch in my case ) ; the way they were prior to entering the maternity phase of life.
My mom was working and the way my parents coordinated the tasks hand in hand ( with a bit of fights here and there for sharing tasks of course) mind in mind never made me realize the difficulty for a working woman in particular to manage family with job until I got into the same phase of life.
I once asked my mom ; how come you never told me that it was so difficult to manage family with work and her answer was that she wanted it to be my unbiased choice.
So I am - Graduated at 22 from a good engineering college in Kerala in free seat ( yes 1000 Rs/- a year) ( with a University second rank -all merits to the good memory that time to easily mug up ) , landed a decent job at campus , became a Team Lead / Technical Lead in 3 years , got married at 26, became a mom at 27 , joined back work in 6 months and is working as Technical lead ever since till now . I have manged to work even after having 2 kids but there has been no growth whatsoever. Have continued to play the Technical Lead role for the last 10 years. Going to work became more of a burden than giving a feeling of accomplishment or fulfillment. The last 2 projects that I delivered did not excel - factors are numerous and people accountable are many - but I am aware that I could not do what was needed to excel the project delivery. Got released from a project after the project go-live. While I'm in bench looking for new projects I decided to see what can be done better to lead a more fulfilling life. Life has been a run or rush every single day with no time whatsoever for me.
Why do I work ? Work makes me feel independent and secure and it has been a grace of god that so far I've been able to manage work with family , co-locating to my husbands work locations.
I generally do better at home when I work and have a better time schedule and 'feel-good' when I work. I want my kids to grow up knowing / seeing that women can be successful professionally and do not want them to differentiate ladies to be 'stay at home' .There is no denying the fact that at times you have this guilt feeling that kids are missing you .But my observation so far is that it is generally better to have kids go out and interact with other kids in the daycare or after school to have better inter personal interaction and vent out their ever high energy levels.
Being optimistic that I've it in me to pull everything together - and lead a fulfilling life; I'm starting to look at options to ease the tasks at home and office . The more I look into the tasks at hand the more I appreciate the quantum of tasks that any average Indian lady handles at home or/and work. Especially in cases where you have to live for work outside of India and both husband and wife are working ,there is very no affordable domestic help available , no help to care for the kids . There is definitely more work than can actually be managed .
Trying to pen down few very obvious action points :
1. Me - time is a must and not an option. Figure out this very precious time and decide on what you would do to re energize. It has to be a 30 mins every single day doing what you love the most.
2. Reskill / Upskill as long as you are in the IT industry. Dedicate an Hour a day ( preferably while at work ) to learn some thing new and keep getting industry recognized certifications to add to your resume.No job in IT is permanent and you need to sell your skills.
3. Do not underestimate the tasks at home . There is a lot of work and take every single step to make it easy. It is easy to plan and mange office work - work or appointments at home also need to be planned with equal or more accuracy and commitment.
4. Get into a job that makes you feel happy or worthy of the efforts taken for the same. Else be open to quit and look out for activities / jobs that would help to feel more fulfilled in life.
Signing off with a tight hug to all the working ladies out there who are trying to pull things together.
"You May encounter many defeats ,
but you must not be defeated.
In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats ,
so you can know who you are,
what you can rise from,
how you can still come out of it "
- Maya Angelou
