The moment I held my little bundle of joy in my arms is by
far the best moment in my life. My little daughter gave a whole new meaning,
dimension to my existence. She made me forget both my past and the future. I basked
in the bliss of motherhood. After a
couple of years arrived my second blessing from god. The mere sight of my two
little munchkins made my life complete.
As days, weeks and
months passed, slowly I realized motherhood was taking a toll on me with minimal
or no external support. I realized that I was not enjoying the process as I was
a few months back. Every day became an ordeal. Frustration started setting in.
I sat back to think what possibly could be the reasons. That’s when it dawned
that I am stuck in a rut. A feeling of nothingness had crept in. I was doing
the mundane day in and day out.
My hard earned engineering degree and the extensive
professional experience I had prior to my children was going down the drains.
The pain my father had to go through to get me educated was turning futile.
That was when, I decided that it’s time to restart my
career. I started applying for jobs, appearing for interviews, most of where I
was rejected due to the career break I had.
And finally after a series of failures, I did manage to secure a job.
Pumped up and excited, I sat down to work out the logistics of balancing work, home
and more importantly my children. The protests from family and friends that I
am doing the wrong thing by taking up a stressful IT job leaving the children
at home with nannies washed out my enthusiasm. But upon some self
introspection, I realized that it wasn’t just the external factors but I was
battling within me. The outside elements were only worsening the already
existing self doubts. It was extremely hard to decide, whether to let go of the
job offer with a hefty pay cheque that came my way after an ordeal or settle at
home for my children’s sake?
The professional, independent,
educated woman in me said “taking up the job was the right thing to do, A sense
of achievement is absolutely essential for one’s self esteem and only a career
can give me that”. The mother in me said, “Children are blessings from God, and
nothing in a woman’s life can take precedence than ensuring their well being”.
I spoke to a lot of working mothers to know about it. I was torn apart, unable to
decide. I debated with my own self, contemplated and eventually, like the
sunshine after days of rain, the clouds shielding my mind cleared and I realized
that everyone has a different clock and It’s inappropriate to compare one’s
life with another. I am the one to decide on what is important and right for me.
I am certainly not
letting my career go forever, but, at the moment I made up my mind to give my
all to the children , for I was convinced that a mother’s attention during the
formative years of the child is absolutely essential . Here I am happily
writing this as my children play around me.
As my hairs turn grey, I would feel more
content seeing smiling pictures of my little daughters adorning the walls of my
humble living room than my trophies in a plush display unit.
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