A working mom

It is with mixed feelings that I write this post. Over the last few days I have relinquished feeding S to the two maids and have just been hanging around the house to supervise them. Otherwise I try not to step in while they are feeding her, playing with her, putting her to sleep or consoling her when she’s cranky .Its really tough, especially when she’s cranky and crying – S gets bored pretty fast, her threshold for any toy including her favourite one is 2 mins and after that S wants to do something new. And the maids have a tough time keeping her entertained. Especially in the afternoon when she’s awake for about 3 hours at a stretch, and after about 1 hour of playing they have run out of new ideas, are tired (being used to a nap while she’s sleeping) and S is in no mood to go to sleep. Today for instance S got up from her morning nap only at 1:45 in the afternoon and I knew she would not go back to sleep before 4-4:30. The maids were ok with feeding and playing with her till about 3. After that she was continuously cranky, finally around 3:30 I stepped in, played with her for first time and put her to sleep.

Anyway I am meandering I am writing this post to get clear in my own mind the merits or working or being an at home mom and how best to handle the work situation.

I had been working for 8 years before S was born. I was quite career focused and was pretty confident that I would return to work post maternity leave of 6 months and S would be well looked after by a good maid. Well I turned out to be completely wrong!! Firstly after S was born I became very possessive of her and was (and still am) convinced that no one could look after her as well as I could. That took care of getting a maid to look after her situation. Also compounded by the fact that I could not find a good maid whom I could trust to look after her in my absence. This got me to thinking on what I should do, whether I should get back to work or not, when etc etc and these are the thoughts I had

Pros of working
Have been working now for 8 years and frankly not sure how I would pass my time at home if not working, I don’t have any hobbies, or a friends circle to meet up with during the weekdays and once S and her siblings (hopefully in the plural) become big and go to school full day what would I do?
We have got used to the financial freedom and privileges of a dual income. While we would have a pretty decent lifestyle on hubby’s salary alone, we would have to think twice about our foreign holidays, dinners out, splurge shopping and holidays home –something we have been used to for some time now. Luckily our home loan is more or less paid off, so I am not bound to work, but we want to secure our children’s future and make sure they are very comfortably off which would be easier if I continue to work for some more time as well (especially since I am currently in a high paying job)
Thirdly, and this is not the most important factor in my mind, but I have studied very hard (getting into one of the best management institutes) and also at my job to get to where I am. If I take off for some time am not sure I would get back to my current level, and would that be a waste of my education?

However in my mind the negatives far outweigh the positives, being ….

Looking after the baby: My in laws and my parents don’t stay in the same city as me, and neither are there any close relatives here. The option on expiry of maternity leave would be to leave S (at 6 months) either at a crèche, or with a trusted maid at home. I tried to find out about crèches but they are not so popular here since most working women have in laws or parents in the same city. I could find only one crèche which accepts 6 months + babies and was not very happy with it. They have a small dingy room for < 1 year babies which mattresses on the floor and a 2:1 maid to child ratio (not too bad). However the room is very small and outside there are older kids running around so don’t think the smaller babies would be let out to that area. To keep S confined in one room for 8-10 hours is pretty unfair, especially when I have tried to take her to the park for a stroll everyday since she was 2 months old!! Anyway I booked the crèche as a last option and decided to try out the maid situation. From month 4 itself I was looking for good maids – but I was just not getting anyone good- we must have gone through some 6-7 maids- some of them pretended to be ill and left the same day, one had a husband having a heart attack (who btw had left her years ago we were made to understand earlier) while another had a close relative passing away (a different topic is why can’t maids just say they don’t want to work with us , we are not going to force anyone to stay back, instead of lying about other people’s well being) while we ourselves were not happy with a couple of them. So literally just as I was settling with one maid some problem would come up and we would have to start the search for someone new. In summary unable to find a good maid to leave S with, and also me not having the trust in them to look after S well

Upbringing of the child :Here I differentiate between looking after the baby physically to bringing up a child, where you play with the child, engage with them to make them understand the world around them and keep them mentally stimulated. This I think a maid just cannot do -I have now left S with the maids (though I am at home) for about a week and the hubby and I have noticed that S is unhappy with them. They are able to feed her (thank God or that would be a major concern)- in fact faster than me (don’t know why she plays up so much with me); put her to sleep and play with her for some time, but she gets bored with them very fast and they are not able to think of new things to engage her. I don’t mind whatever language they speak to her in, but they should talk intelligent and interesting things which unfortunately they don’t. So what typically happens is after about 10 mins of playing with them S will come running to me or the hubby (he also takes a day off every week to stay with S so I can go into work) and will refuse to go back to them. I don’t blame the maids- if they are not able to engage the child, they are not, as parents we will always be best able to play and educate our child. I only worry what would happen if S is left the whole day with them- will she become depressed, will she be cranky and clingy when I get home (I know a girl who stopped working since the child would be crying as soon as she got home and would cling to her, but another girl who continued to work saying the child was otherwise happy but only clingy when she got back), or will it be worse and affect her overall upbringing. I also heard that the first 2 years are the most important in the brain development of the child- do you want to leave them with a maid at that time? I agree with this, I have seen that S has started talking/babbling more when she is with my mother or mother in law who talk to her and tell her stories- the only thing she has picked up is Ka a short form for kawua (crow)

Spending time with S – The time I spend at work would be time not spent with S. Why would I want to miss out on her first steps, her first Mama, her squeals of delight while playing and exploring new things, time at the park, cuddly time before sleeping- again a tough choice…is my temperament suited to staying at home and spending all my time with her, or would I be a better mother if I went to work and spent quality time with S

Anyway all these issues and thoughts and what are the options really to strike a balance between the pros and the negatives?

Options
Work from home – to my mind this is the ideal one. I don’t have a business generating/client facing role and having largely a desk job can work quite effectively from home. I would definetly need help to look after the baby as I’m supposed to be working, but I would be able to a) sneak in some time to take S to the park/play with her for sometime during the day which would not be possible if I was working from office full time and more importantly b)I could oversee the maids who look after S so that I know she is beign well looked after. The main problem with this is that my office does not have a work from home policy so my boss had to get a deviation approved from me. Also I had asked for 6 months work from home, but boss finally agreed to 3 months with rollover (if all ok ) for another 3 months. Anyway I am not at a stage to argue so will take what I get. The other problem linked to the office not having a work from home policy is that the system is not geared to handle it- people keep having conference calls at short notices, I get requests to come into office urgently (I can’t do that since I didn’t have the setup for maids to independtly look after S till very recently), people want to have long discussions which are best done face to face, my whole team is in office and everytime they meet to discuss they have to dial me in (I think they can adjust this much, but obviously others don’t always share my view) and of course the jibes from others- oh how long is your extended holiday, when do you actually plan to get back to work- I am quite insensitive to these now, if I have to get what I want (getting to stay at home with S and still have a career) I can put up with some stupid people’s comments.

Send S to parents – the other option is to send S to my parents place till she is big enough to come back here and go to a crèche- maybe till she is 1 year 2 months or so. One of my colleagues actually did this- either her mom was staying with her or she sent her daughter to her mom’s place till she was 1 year old. I am not so keen on this because a) it is too much responsibility on my parents and w0uld restrict their lifestyle- they keep traveling and if they had to look after S full time they would not be able to travel and b) I want to be part of S growing up through all the stages- I feel strongly and maybe many others don’t share this view, but you should be responsible for and an integral part of your child growing up- how can you miss out on the first steps, the first words , the first tantrums (yes that has started today, let me record the date December 12th) –soon they will grow up and be independent and then you will wonder where the time went.

Work from parents city- the other option which occurs to me from time to time is to take a temporary transfer at work to my mum’s city. Earlier our team was spread out over the country, and I think my boss would be ok for this on a temporary basis, but the main reason I am not keen on this is that I don’t want the hubby to miss out on S growing up. I was anyway at my mum’s place for 3 months from the time S was 11/2 months to 41/2 months, but now S is much bigger and she does new things everyday which I don’t want the hubby to miss out on, also she enjoys playing with him. Of course when I am in a bad mood, after fighting with the hubby I threaten to move to my mom’s place temporarily (quite childish of me)

Convince in laws to move to our city- to my mind this would be an ideal option. A lot of my friends are quite surprised at this- how will you get along with your in-laws, you are so fussy about S won’t you fight with them about how to bring her up. My main argument is, ultimately I will have to get back to work full time, and then the option is for S to go to a crèche or to be looked after at home by maids. I don’t have control over what the maids do behind my back, and definetly no control over what happens at the crèche. And I am sure my mom-in-law would do a far better job of bringing up S than any crèche /maids. So I am willing to let go control and bite my tongue and request them to move to our city so that S is well looked after. Also my in laws would stay in a different flat so we would not cramp each others style.

Anyway I was not lucky enough to be able to convince the in-laws to move here. And my boss ultimately did not agree to rollover my work from home-can’t blame him, the credit crisis has made our job quite stressful and he needs to have daily updates from the team which becomes slightly difficult to accommodate me on the phone every time. However he didn’t say you have to come to work everyday, he said try to come in as much as possible (I know that means everyday). So I am currently going into office whenever I can, have requested mom-in law and mom to come for 1 month each in Jan and Feb till S is 1 year 1 month and plan to put her in daycare for ½ day and maid looking after her ½ day post that. Keep fingers crossed!!