What Money cannot buy
My daughter who is in her last school year returned home the other day, eager to share the events of her day at school. After listening for a while, I was slightly distracted by a beep on my phone and i looked to see an interesting forward. Noticing that I wasn’t paying attention, she walked away in a
huff. I put away my cell phone, but no amount of my coaxing or cajoling her yielded any result.
Guilt-ridden with the thought that in a few more years, she will become too busy in making her own
future and that I might not have any more school stories to listen to, I went on with the rest of the day’s chores mechanically.
At this point, one thing struck me deeply. I imagined a working mother, who returned home only by dusk every day. Would the kids wait patiently for the mother and still have the mood, inclination and the need to share the day’s incidents at school or would they have gotten so used to keeping it
all to themselves? Would the mothers themselves be in a frame of mind to listen after their own
hectic working day? The reason I was thinking on these lines was because of something that my neighbour had shared with me a few days back. Her sister in law had been recently transferred in her bank job to Bangalore. Her husband was working in an MNC there and he also had the option of working from home. They had a young son and she was elated because they could finally stay together as a family. But after few months, the husband was posted to UK on a project. The mother who had to
travel some distance to her bank had to leave early each day and would return only very late in the evening. Now the little one had to return to an empty home after school. To make up for the time till the mother returned from her work, he was enrolled in French and Hindi classes, as these were additional subjects in his new school. I felt sad for this child and numerous other younger and older
children who are either greeted by the empty walls of their homes day after day or are forced to go straight from school to some tuition class, tired and hungry. In many instances, they are thrust in the care of some odd relative or their own aged grandparent till either of the parent returned from work. While I do understand that a small percentage of such couples do really need the extra income, for the vast majority, it is a just a matter of choice- Choice of having a career over the needs of their own child/children. The choice of a career boosts their prestige and social status is their belief. “you are a post graduate and you chose to be a home maker? I have been asked innumerable times.
With the growing cost of living, one may argue that a second income is no longer a luxury but aren’t we, unaware of ourselves, also having a lifestyle that is extravagantly growing more than proportionally to our incomes, thus adding to our woes? How else can we explain the multiple number of vacations to foreign countries annually? Or the frequency in upgrading cars?
But can money really buy everything we need? Can we bring back the time once lost? Have we forgotten the meaning of the term ‘contentment’ somewhere down the line? Can gadgets and toys make up for the time the parents cannot afford to give the child? Can any nanny, however well qualified she may be or any specialized day care ever equate a mother’s love and care? I insist on the term 'mother’ because Nature has made her the primary and foremost caretaker, birthing and breast feeding, being her exclusive privileges! In our fight for equality, women empowerment and feminism, are we not distilling the very definition of womanhood by becoming blind to the needs of our own flesh and blood?
I am not grooming my daughter to become a full time home maker but definitely, I will teach her the
need to understand what her priorities are, at each stage of her life, at the right time. Like the
famous Infosys couple Narayan Murthy and Sudha Murthy, who were both successful, career
oriented and highly educated, a mature dialogue has to take place between couples once children
come into the picture, as to who will continue with their career and who will raise the children until
at least they reach a certain age. When a child arrives, the couple should definitely put the child first
and the career next. Why have a child at all when you do not have the time it deserves? I would like
to add that parents also need to educate their sons in similar ways as the role of a Father is not any less
significant and house husbands are not a taboo anymore either.
To conclude, I would like to narrate a clip I received on social media, in which a father asks his young
son what he wanted for his birthday. The young son in return asks his father what his monthly salary is. At being given a figure which he cannot comprehend, he innocently asks his father to tell him his
average earnings for a day. The next scene would melt anyone’s heart. The son empties his piggy
bank and tells his dad “Daddy, Will you take off from work on my birthday? That is the present I
want. I shall give you the balance of your day’s pay once I save it up”.
Coming back to my daughter and her school day, I ultimately got her to tell me the rest of her story,
albeit the initial zest and excitement, proving again that it was a matter of ‘time’ after all...
My daughter who is in her last school year returned home the other day, eager to share the events of her day at school. After listening for a while, I was slightly distracted by a beep on my phone and i looked to see an interesting forward. Noticing that I wasn’t paying attention, she walked away in a
huff. I put away my cell phone, but no amount of my coaxing or cajoling her yielded any result.
Guilt-ridden with the thought that in a few more years, she will become too busy in making her own
future and that I might not have any more school stories to listen to, I went on with the rest of the day’s chores mechanically.
At this point, one thing struck me deeply. I imagined a working mother, who returned home only by dusk every day. Would the kids wait patiently for the mother and still have the mood, inclination and the need to share the day’s incidents at school or would they have gotten so used to keeping it
all to themselves? Would the mothers themselves be in a frame of mind to listen after their own
hectic working day? The reason I was thinking on these lines was because of something that my neighbour had shared with me a few days back. Her sister in law had been recently transferred in her bank job to Bangalore. Her husband was working in an MNC there and he also had the option of working from home. They had a young son and she was elated because they could finally stay together as a family. But after few months, the husband was posted to UK on a project. The mother who had to
travel some distance to her bank had to leave early each day and would return only very late in the evening. Now the little one had to return to an empty home after school. To make up for the time till the mother returned from her work, he was enrolled in French and Hindi classes, as these were additional subjects in his new school. I felt sad for this child and numerous other younger and older
children who are either greeted by the empty walls of their homes day after day or are forced to go straight from school to some tuition class, tired and hungry. In many instances, they are thrust in the care of some odd relative or their own aged grandparent till either of the parent returned from work. While I do understand that a small percentage of such couples do really need the extra income, for the vast majority, it is a just a matter of choice- Choice of having a career over the needs of their own child/children. The choice of a career boosts their prestige and social status is their belief. “you are a post graduate and you chose to be a home maker? I have been asked innumerable times.
With the growing cost of living, one may argue that a second income is no longer a luxury but aren’t we, unaware of ourselves, also having a lifestyle that is extravagantly growing more than proportionally to our incomes, thus adding to our woes? How else can we explain the multiple number of vacations to foreign countries annually? Or the frequency in upgrading cars?
But can money really buy everything we need? Can we bring back the time once lost? Have we forgotten the meaning of the term ‘contentment’ somewhere down the line? Can gadgets and toys make up for the time the parents cannot afford to give the child? Can any nanny, however well qualified she may be or any specialized day care ever equate a mother’s love and care? I insist on the term 'mother’ because Nature has made her the primary and foremost caretaker, birthing and breast feeding, being her exclusive privileges! In our fight for equality, women empowerment and feminism, are we not distilling the very definition of womanhood by becoming blind to the needs of our own flesh and blood?
I am not grooming my daughter to become a full time home maker but definitely, I will teach her the
need to understand what her priorities are, at each stage of her life, at the right time. Like the
famous Infosys couple Narayan Murthy and Sudha Murthy, who were both successful, career
oriented and highly educated, a mature dialogue has to take place between couples once children
come into the picture, as to who will continue with their career and who will raise the children until
at least they reach a certain age. When a child arrives, the couple should definitely put the child first
and the career next. Why have a child at all when you do not have the time it deserves? I would like
to add that parents also need to educate their sons in similar ways as the role of a Father is not any less
significant and house husbands are not a taboo anymore either.
To conclude, I would like to narrate a clip I received on social media, in which a father asks his young
son what he wanted for his birthday. The young son in return asks his father what his monthly salary is. At being given a figure which he cannot comprehend, he innocently asks his father to tell him his
average earnings for a day. The next scene would melt anyone’s heart. The son empties his piggy
bank and tells his dad “Daddy, Will you take off from work on my birthday? That is the present I
want. I shall give you the balance of your day’s pay once I save it up”.
Coming back to my daughter and her school day, I ultimately got her to tell me the rest of her story,
albeit the initial zest and excitement, proving again that it was a matter of ‘time’ after all...
No comments:
Post a Comment