Between motherhood and career

[prasad1]

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Krish44's post in another thread prompted this post.
I am a man married to a career woman and a successful daughter residing in the USA.
So this is not my personal experience but an observed one.

Parents against marriage

I am interested in a girl(who is also a brahmin) , but my parents are against it since her brother married a widow and my parents say her family are outcastes now. My parents are orthodox . Is what my parents saying correct according to Hindu Dharma Shastra? Since her brother married a widow...

www.tamilbrahmins.com

A woman who rides the success wave as an underwater photographer or a pilot, financial adviser, management consultant, pearl diver, bartender, bus driver or police officer, is very often suddenly swung back looking for answers after she is delivered of a child.

And there comes a phase when she has to choose between motherhood and a thriving career. The former takes precedence for many as it becomes the purpose for the latter to exist. As C.S. Lewis said, “The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only — and that is to support the ultimate career. ” Motherhood surely answers the existential crisis, spurts inner growth, shuns materialistic desires, and above all, is a spiritual discourse with the almighty. But the problem arises when motherhood is chosen over career.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry conducted a survey in 2015 that revealed that a growing number of highly educated women in urban India are abandoning their professional lives to become full-time mothers as raising children side by side with pursuing a career has become too complex a task. Assocham interacted with over 400 mothers in the 25-30 age group in 10 cities to find out about their employment-related decisions after motherhood.

According to a 2013 World Bank study, only 27% of women aged over 15 was found to be working in India. This is the lowest rate of women’s participation in any workforce among the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries. The figure is the highest in China, at 64%.


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A scene from English Vinglish comes to mind where Sridevi reiterates the essence of a strong woman. She is at her sister’s place in New York to help her plan a family wedding. When her niece asks her if she loved the fellow-student at her English language class, she answers with certainty, “I don’t need love. All I need is respect.”

Sometimes married couples don’t even know how the other half feels. So how will they help the other? Does it mean the marriage is finished? No. That is the time you have to help yourself... Nobody can help you better than you yourself. If you do that, you will return back feeling an equal. Your friendship will return. Your life will be beautiful again.

So, look up, find and shine with purpose; everything you’ve been looking for is inside you!

Between motherhood and career

The growing conflict of choices among women has many aspects to it

www.thehindu.com

 

[prasad1]

WHY ARE SO MANY WOMEN ABSENT FROM INDIA’S WORKFORCE?
Despite more and more attaining higher education, social stigmas and dated attitudes are hindering the number of Indian women entering employment, finds Smriti Sharma.

India’s rapid economic growth has been accompanied by falling fertility rates and higher educational attainment among women. These advances often lead to an increase in women entering the labour force, but there has been a surprising decline on this front in India. Less than 30 per cent of working-age women are currently in work compared to nearly 80 per cent of men in India.

Why are so many women absent from India’s workforce?

Despite more and more attaining higher education, social stigmas and dated attitudes are hindering the number of Indian women entering employment, finds Smriti Sharma

www.independent.co.uk

 

[prasad1]

Why India’s modern women say it’s a ‘burden’ to be female

It all started with the gang rape of a young Indian woman in Delhi in 2012 — a victim now known in India as “Nirbhaya,” which means “Fearless” in Hindi. Protesters marched in the Indian capital, candlelight vigils were held and courts sentenced the rapists to death.

Amid the new calls to stop violence against women in India, Deepa Narayan, a sociologist based in Delhi, kept turning one question over and over in her head: How did Indian society come to accept this treatment of women? “What is it about our culture that leads to such violence against women and this pervasive sexism?” she said in an interview.
The question led Narayan and her researchers to conduct 600 interviews — about 3,000 hours over three years, documented in more than 8,000 pages of notes, now published in a new book called “Chup,” the Hindi word for the imperative “Quiet.” That word was chosen, Narayan said, because it has become so ubiquitous in silencing women that it was recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Conducted across colleges, in coffee shops and in shopping malls in the major Indian cities of New Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, Narayan's interviews sought to delve into the “inner lives” of urban women. It revealed that India's young, educated, modern women still encounter widespread gender inequality, and often internalize conservative attitudes toward women's social roles.


Women, even those who said they were feminists, often used words such as “mother,” “sacrifice” or “giving” to describe themselves, Narayan found, while men often described themselves as a “leader” or “powerful.”
“Overwhelmingly, what emerges is the burden of duty; women feel burdened by the ‘shoulds,’ the expectations of duty imposed on them” Narayan writes in the book. “In fact most words chosen by women describe the emotional qualities and strengths needed to cope with the duties of being a daughter, wife and mother, in other words, meeting everyone else’s needs selflessly.”
India, despite making strides in development in the past three decades, lags behind on gender equality. It ranks 131 of 188 countries on the U.N. Development Program's Gender Inequality Index. Dowry, female infanticide and women's education are persistent issues despite decades of successive governments' efforts to address them. Narayan said the problems in India are not limited to villages and uneducated people — the behavior of outspoken critics of sexism shows how deeply entrenched these attitudes are.


One woman, who leads the gender studies and diversity program at a university in New Delhi, for example, recently called Narayan to compliment one of her recent speeches. “She said, 'Oh you're so beautiful.' That was her first line. I had to start laughing,” she said.
Narayan didn't expect that so many of her interviewees — a sample of India's young, modern women — would be parroting female stereotypes, despite labeling themselves as feminists. “What I heard women saying was disturbing. Over and over I would shake my head in disbelief that yet another smart and smartly dressed woman, an artist, a business manager, a financial analyst, a professor, a dentist, an engineer, a lawyer, a researcher, a scientist, a teacher, an educated stay-at-home mom was so unsure of herself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/12/why-indias-modern-women-say-its-a-burden-to-be-female/

 

[renuka]

I think we tend to put motherhood and career at polar opposites.

Career should not always translate as MONEY.
I prefer to use the word Job.
Career is a fancy word which honestly is ego based.

When we say Career its always measured on a material scale and indicating on going success.

Life is both success and failure.
Both are important as both shape our mind.

Success is the greatest teacher for the ways of the physical world and Failure is the greatest teacher of the spiritual world.

At the same time honestly what on earth satisfaction does one really get from a job?

Its just a job!
Its just one small aspect of life.
If we are drowning and someone tells us..if you agree to give up your job, you would be saved.
All of us would give up our jobs or full bank savings to be saved from death.

So why the big issue that motherhood and job cant go hand in hand?

One can balance both but its always better to be 60% family and 40% job..cos when we die we surely prefer to leave the world happy that we spent more time with family.

 

[prasad1]

One can balance both but its always better to be 60% family and 40% job..cos when we die we surely prefer to leave the world happy that we spent more time with family.

It is easy if you are well to do, or you have grandma or nanny to help.
At the lower-income level, at least in the USA, that choice is not there.
The average wages in Hospitality are about $12.00/hour. Childcare is about $15.00/hour/per child. So a mother of 1+ Can not work outside the home.

 

[renuka]

It is easy if you are well to do, or you have grandma or nanny to help.
At the lower-income level, at least in the USA, that choice is not there.
The average wages in Hospitality are about $12.00/hour. Childcare is about $15.00/hour/per child. So a mother of 1+ Can not work outside the home.

Then USA should have what some companies in Malaysia have..they have in house child day care.

Also out here there are lots of private kindergartens with day care facilities ..not expensive..lots of blue collar workers too can afford it.

So here majority of women work.