By Zohra Javed,
I recently read an article “stay-at-home-mom”, which talked about how essential it is for a woman to be there for her children when they are growing up, and that women professionals often end up neglecting their home and family. Indeed there can be no two opinions on the importance of the mother’s role in the life of her children. I am an ardent champion of what the writer calls a “stay-at-home mom”. But I also realise that she and I are among those fortunate women who have a supportive family and the satisfaction of a comfortable life.
However life is not easy for most of the females out there who are slogging day in and day out. They may have got used to their daily grind, but it is their courage to bear it all with a smile, balancing a home and a career.
It is said that the ordinary homemaker has to come face-to-face with what is called the “empty nest syndrome.” That is when the children grow up and lead their separate life the parents are left all by themselves. And for a woman who has had no other occupation than living for her husband and children, the emptiness may seem to be depressing. But is it only the housewife who misses her children? Let us accept this reality. Even the working women go through this phase of loneliness. When children grow up and take on the challenges in life, at some time or other they have to move out of the wings of their parents and experience life on their own. It is their privilege as it was ours a couple of decades back.
It is now taken for granted that girls will opt for a career and most women, especially in the urban areas are taken to be career women. Therefore people often are surprised when I tell them that I have never been a career woman. One of my cousins who is about ten years younger to me had once wondered with much sympathy to me as to why I never thought of a career. But perhaps I was an odd one in my time too as I never planned a future while the rest of the girls in my class would be busy preparing for entrance tests of all kinds under the sun!
Having said this, I think it is necessary for girls today to be financially independent. It is their basic safeguard. It is the best gift parents can give to their daughters. It guarantees them confidence and security (at least financial) and thus respect too. In case of a failed marriage or the loss of her husband, she does not become a burden on the male family members or a prey to the lustful ideas of other men around her. And in her marriage too usually a woman professional is much more in command of her life than the “ordinary housewife.”