Taking care of the children in my country used to be a breeze, so to speak. There was always a grandparent, or an aunt, or a friendly neighbor who stepped in with a helping hand, and eased the burden of the parents to a certain extent. Trusted servants would take care of the children, with a family member on hand to supervise them. Not so here. In the absence of elderly family members here, children cannot be entrusted to friends or neighbors because of molestation concerns, and sitters have to be thoroughly vetted and cleared with periodic criminal checks. There are horror stories now and then of sitters being caught secretly on tape, by "nanny cams", abusing the children under their care. This can undoubtedly be one of the worst nightmares for any parent. I feel a pang when I see all the child-rearing travails of my working friends and family, and can very well understand if someone decided to defer having a child to a time more conducive to them, or if they decided not to have one at all.
Having been able to take five and a half years off work in the first six years of my son's life has been a dream come true for me, and a mighty blessing in the truest sense of the word! Looking back, it was a luxury to have been able to do so, one that many of my friends still envy me for, and I'm simply grateful that I could afford to do that then. Subsequently, the husband or I have always been available at home for the kid, and now that he's a strapping young adult, soon-to-be-sixteen, we're mulling if we should take a vacation without him after all. "No way," he says, "I want to come too!" ... and so for now, our babying continues. We may not have had the usual travails of working parents, but now our concern is of a different kind - how to ditch the teenager, leave him on his own, and take off on that much-needed vacation, without any parenting woes!!! :)
mam, what u have written is 100% true of working parents in madurai too. no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles, no cousins... the children also grow up all alone. in most families no brother/sister also. parents and children... nuclear family with all its advantages and disadvantages making them unhappy and happy at the same time.
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