Tag: maternity leave

2/13: Motherhood statements

It was a casual chat we had sometime during Pinky’s first year of MBA. We were talking about making babies, and started wondering how it would be to make one right around the time she graduated. “Imagine going up to receive my degree with a big belly”, she’d laughed.

Incredibly, it happened. When she came to Bangalore for an extended break after her exchange term at U. Michigan, we gave it a little go. And on New Year’s Eve 2015-16, if my calculations are correct, the artist first known as Larvesh came to be conceived.

Larvesh became Pupesh a month later when the pregnancy app told us that the embryo had got attached to the walls of the uterus. Three months later, when we found out it was a girl, Pupesh became Pupeshwari. And she came out as Berry in September.

IESE is situated in the hilly Barcelona suburb of Pedralbes, and unless you have your own vehicle, you need to climb a steep slope to get there. Pregnancy during the last term of school was hard for Pinky since it meant climbing the hill from the bus stop each day. Having to frequently use the restroom didn’t make matters any easier. Yet Pinky didn’t give up.

She actually took extra credits during that term of MBA, since there was a course she really wanted to do. She remained active as ever in extra curricular activities, organising two mini conferences. Given that Pupu was a tiny baby, nobody at IESE had an idea of her existence!

Pinky got her post-MBA job offer deferred so that she could have the baby (effectively getting unpaid maternity leave), but was determined to work in the gap between her MBA and job start. And so Marriage Broker Auntie happened.

The day before Berry was born, Pinky was taking calls on her hospital bed, advising clients on blading strategies. After Berry was born, Pinky refused to go to her parents’ (the standard practice in Karnataka), arguing she wouldn’t be able to work from there. Indiscretion on my part meant Pinky had to take care of Berry alone for long periods, and she did that without complaining, while running Marriage Broker Auntie on the side (it was only recently when I started looking after Berry by myself that I realised how exhausting taking care of a baby can be – my respect for Pinky shot up on that first day of house-husbanding).

A lot of people wonder how we’ve managed to move continents when Berry is so small, especially when Pinky has started such a demanding job. However, Pinky has managed the whole process so well that I scarcely imagine that we’ve done something people find so challenging – it all seems so normal to me (my part in the move and settling here has been minor – I continue to be a lazy bum and put NED)!

Back at the IIMB reunion in December, which Pinky and Berry attended for one evening, one of my friends commented how she found Pinky to be “so sorted” (in terms of motherhood). Coming to think of it, that’s an excellent summary of how Pinky has handled motherhood.

1/13: Leaving home

 

Working women, maternity and all that

As I write this, my wife is at work. Though her official gainful fulltime employment starts only a few months later (her employers have deferred her joining date thanks to the baby), she is continuing with her work as Marriage Broker Auntie (which she is now pivoting into something like a “Love Training School“).

In fact, our daughter was barely a week old when my wife decided to get back to business, in her quest to get more people “settled down” and “find partners” (she even brokered a deal from her hospital bed as they tried to induce labour in her). And so I’ve been able to observe, at reasonably close quarters, what it’s like to work while having a tiny baby.

Some times, you think it just doesn’t matter. That she works mainly from home means that she’s always with the baby. There are always sufficiently long periods of time when the baby sleeps when she can do her emails and writing. While sleep is definitely disturbed (by at least two hour-long feeding sessions each night), that she doesn’t engage in other strenuous work means she can handle the work stress.

But then there are the minor irritants. Meetings are a no-no, for example, since she can’t go out, and it doesn’t always make sense to call business acquaintances home. She’s been trying to substitute it with Skype/Facetime calls, but the challenge has been in terms of timing.

Given that some of the people she works with are fairly busy, she needs to pre-schedule calls, and with the baby’s feeding and sleeping schedule being rather uncertain, this is not an easy task. And then there is the problem of having someone take care of the baby during the call, which means the call has to take place at a time when I’m at home.

And so she is on a Skype call now. As she went in for the call, she asked me to handle the baby until it was done, promising that it would be a short call. As it usually happens in such situations, Abheri decided to start crying some two minutes after Priyanka went in for the call.

I tried all my usual tricks. I lay her down on my chest, a technique that usually comforts her in no time, but to no avail (I’ve read about the merits of skin-to-skin contact with the baby but given up on it after she decided to eat my chest hair). I then tried this face-down neck-hold (that I’ve nicknamed “choke slam”), which again usually works in calming her. Again no luck.

Then I smelt shit and thought she was crying because she needed a change of diapers. That didn’t help either. Rocking and singing and swaying and talking – all usually have an immediate effect but none whatsoever today. It was obvious that Abheri was hungry.

So I had to call emergency. Thankfully Priyanka’s Skype call is voice only (or maybe she switched, since she typically prefers video), so she managed to take a little break from the call to take Abheri from my hands. She (Abheri) immediately calmed down – food wasn’t far away.

Priyanka is still on her call, cradling Abheri with one hand against her breast, as Abheri feeds. And Priyanka continues to work.

Major level up in respect for her to see her work this way.

And major envy as well – that she can hold the baby and simultaneously work – nearly four weeks in and I’ve still not mastered the art of holding the baby with one hand, so I can’t work while carrying her!

PS: As for the new law that increases maternity leave, I’m sceptical, since I believe that full-time employment is something that will soon be history. More importantly, the law raises the cost of hiring women, so I’m not sure it will have its intended consequences. Read Priyanka’s excellent analysis here.