The Hindu Business Line : Balancing work and home

In gracious far-off days, the male of the species took upon himself the clear-cut role of the breadwinner, while the wife stayed at home and minded the kids and the quotidian chores of running the family.

This nearly watertight separation of duties and obligations between the husband and the housewife was also the result of the differential upbringing of men and women — the former usually educated and equipped to function as an office-goer and th e latter providing the needed comfort and support at home.

The working hours, too, even when they explicitly involved shift duties, were predictable and enabled the male spouse to spend sufficient time with the family and plan for periodical vacations, both to recharge his batteries and to keep the family happy with a sense of togetherness.

Times have changed beyond recognition. Nowadays, in a majority of cases, both spouses are employed, not only in order to supplement the income to satisfy their yearning for a comfortable life, but also because of the increasingly expensive nature of the demands, whether they be household needs, admission of the children to a good school or college, cost of their education abroad and the like.

Also, women are fast becoming the equal of men in educational and professional attainments, and they naturally look for scope to put them to use and earn the needed bucks besides, instead of merely keeping the home fires burning.

Nobody can be blamed for this situation, since it has always been an inherent as well as inevitable concomitant of access to education and economic progress.

But, unfortunately, it is taking a heavy toll. In such conditions, the working couple has to have its children looked after by parents and relatives, with no guarantee of their being available all the time or in all cases, or capable of playing the role of surrogate parents.

Or worse, they have to leave them in crèches or day-care centres for the duration of their absence at work.

They are also unable to fulfil their children’s essential emotional needs during their formative years or serve as their counsellor or companion during the different stages of their education.

All these factors get painfully aggravated when either spouse, or both of them, are in info-tech or other industry outfits that necessarily call for having to carry out assignments at all odd hours of the day or night.

Gnawing feeling

They do try to strike a harmonious balance between the compulsions of the workplace and obligations to one’s family.

The process is, no doubt, helped by crèches in workplaces, or employees being permitted to bring their children to offices.

Working from home is also becoming a widely accepted practice.

With all this, the working spouses always have the gnawing feeling that they are in a half-way house, not giving of their best in terms of quantum and quality of their output, either to their employers or to their families.

I know of a brilliant scientist couple whose performance is only 60 per cent of their true worth because of their having to adjust themselves to their obligations to their growing children. They also feel constrained to decline a number of invitations to attend prestigious seminars or studies round the globe.

Understandably, all this makes for a stress-ridden life both in office and at home, making the spouses potential or actual victims of various kinds of psychosomatic disorders.

What is the solution? Should the wife boldly give up her job to remain at home with the children and minister to their needs, or work the better part of the night in office or laboratory to make up for the distractions during day-time?

B. S. RAGHAVAN