Juggling childcare and career

30 September 2009

With the hunt for babysitters becoming increasingly futile, working mothers in Thimphu are torn between filial obligation and career demands. Kinzang Choden reports

Her day starts early in the morning. She rushes to her husband’s car after dropping her five-month-old baby at her in-laws’ house. It is already nine am, and she is already late for work. This is the daily routine of Kinley, 27. And this is the daily routine of working mothers like her.

As soon as she wakes up, Kinley cooks for her family. Then, she packs diapers and other stuff for her baby. Kinley works for a private firm which, she said, is ‘always stressful’. Now, with a child, she finds herself scrambling for time – morning and evening.

She and her husband have been trying to find a babysitter but to no avail. So her child grows up with her grandmother while she spends more than seven hours at work. She is torn between her professional duty and filial obligation.

Kinley says she would prefer her child to her job if her husband earned enough to keep the family going. Pema Choden, 27, another employee of a private firm, takes her baby with her to work. She has to juggle babysitting and office work. “It is exhausting. It’s like doing two odd jobs at a time,” she said.

Kinley and Pema represent hundreds of working women in Thimphu, who try to strike a balance between motherhood and independent womanhood.

Most of them end up leaving behind their young children. Some do it for money, and others want to be successful career women. Some elderly women, mostly grandmothers who babysit, take pride in seeing young mothers work alongside their husbands.

However, a few others think working mothers deprive their children of proper care and attention. Therefore, they should get back to mothering.

Chimi, 66, looks after two grandchildren – a six-month-old grandson and a one-year-old granddaughter. She said her daughter, who works eight hours a week, should continue to work and earn in order to be a financially independent head of the family. “If she quit, we will have a tough time feeding ourselves,” she said.

In Thimphu, grandparents have come to play a crucial role in the society. They fill up the filial gap left behind by working mothers. They have become an important link between busy mothers and young children.

According to most working women, stress level among them is mounting. It is because they are mothers, workers, and homemakers, all at once. Bhutanese society still thinks that home is women’s domain.

Now, with the government considering young babysitters child labourers, the pressure on working mothers is only going to mount.

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