What does the New Year bring? I do not know for sure. Yet I know what the past once imparted. It made me look for the extraordinary in ordinary day to day things. I became a mother. I learned you can feel overjoyed and over annoyed simultaneously. 2019 taught me that somebody can hog the entire place in your room and in your bed and yet they can claim most of the place in your heart too. That is what becoming a mother feels like.
I also learned that some dictatorships are created in nature and even though I am an out and out democrat, I believe that the dictatorship of a toddler is one of the most amazing regimes.
Most importantly, 2019 taught me that you cannot raise a kid alone. The conventional wisdom is that you need a village to raise a kid. That is not true. You actually need the input from the whole society to raise a child… a society that is considerate, supportive, equitable and fair. No matter how optimistically we look at the picture, we know that is not the case in Pakistan.
Infant and maternal care demand urgent attention in Pakistan. I am the firsthand witness of the unprofessional treatment that families face before, after and during childbirth.
I have also witnessed people asking single women in job interviews when they would get married. I have seen them ask the married women would they be able to manage professional life with the personal one and who would take care of their babies and home. Many qualified HR professionals lack the understanding that these questions are downright unethical and illegal. Many respondents lack this understanding too. So they respond with apologies as if wanting to work while having a family is mutually exclusive for womankind.
The maternity leave is not universal in Pakistan let alone the paternity leave. One may wonder if paternity leave is much of a use in our society where even today, there is a stigma attached to the fathers giving hand to the mothers to help take care of the baby.
The working mothers, who are almost always the primary caregivers of the children, are also not encouraged to bring their babies to work. Very few organizations are equipped with the professional Daycare Centers. Women can arrange for a Daycare Centre on their own but the good one would cost a fortune. In a society where women certainly are neither given equal opportunity nor provided with equal pay, this definitely is not a feasible bargain that you spend most of your money to keep your child safe while you are at work.
I personally leave my child with my mother in law. My child and I are lucky to have a village at home yet many are not and I feel for them. All we, as a people, can do right now is to strengthen the villages until our society comes of age and starts being more supportive of working women. I am sure such villages will pave way for a more progressive and equitable society.
