How are professionals managing their maternity breaks and careers? A new book asks the question

There is absolutely no doubt that a maternity break is the single most challenging stage in a woman’s career. A pregnancy is typically announced and celebrated in society as ‘good news’. It is the time when women are pampered and looked after. For working women, however, it could well mean that your teams and organisations see you as physically and emotionally vulnerable, compromised in terms of productivity, and incapacitated when it comes to high-pressure projects or travel.

As a senior HR head told me, in order to counter this, many women try very hard to be active and work right till they go into labour, just to prove that pregnancy doesn’t mean you are out of action. They want to swing back into the thick of things right after their delivery, in line with the highly controversial recommendation of Marissa Mayer, the former CEO of Yahoo.

You might have read about how she went to work after just two weeks of delivering a baby. The HR head made it clear that the company did nothing to pressure its employees to return early and that it was every woman’s individual choice how late into her pregnancy she wanted to work.

My personal view has been that becoming a parent is a huge responsibility and the early days and months are important, involving not only breastfeeding but also seeing the baby through immunisation and teething and other such important milestones. It is a trying as well as an emotional period for a young mother, and unless she has a dependable and caring support system in the form of a mother, mother- in-law or trained maid, it is very difficult to separate her from her baby.

I feel that taking six months off to look after your baby does not make much difference to a career that spans over thirty-five to forty years but can pay huge dividends to both the mother and child.

Now, of course, in India, women are entitled to six months of paid maternity leave (which is an issue that is being debated and we will tackle that in later chapters), with an option to extend it without pay, giving the new mother a little more time to settle the baby down. Even then, when it is time to go back to work, women struggle with what is effectively the cutting of the umbilical cord for the second time.

With such an attractive and emotionally engaging distraction at home now, the return to work needs to be both smooth and fulfilling. The onus of this falls on both the young woman as well as the organisation.

‘The key thing is for women to see the break as a temporary thing,’ suggests Natasha Ramarathnam, an IIMA alumna from Hyderabad, whose own maternity break extended longer than expected as she lives in a nuclear family and found it difficult to manage career and home. If the maternity leave extends for too long, staying at home can become comfortable and careers can easily get derailed.

Natasha also feels that when women are at home on a maternity break, they find that more than their share of domestic chores starts falling in their laps. ‘You are at home anyway so can you supervise the plumber and also get the water filter changed?’ would be a familiar narrative.

Natasha warns young mothers that this is an irreversible process and you will continue doing all the work that the spouse did before your break, even after you join back. As it is, women take on more than their fair share of domestic chores. Others, too, say that during the maternity break, you should deviate from your routine as little as possible so that the transition back to work is smoother. Once the baby settles down to a schedule, the new mother should try to get back to her normal eating and sleeping schedule, with some me time thrown in as well.

An interesting fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown has been that with limited or no access to domestic help, men and young adults have had to do their share of household chores. It has been a fabulous learning experience, particularly for the well-to-do, and my hope is that they continue the good work long after the virus has been conquered!

Managing the maternity break well is critical and, depending on their situation and support systems, women resort to different strategies.

Dhanashree Shirodkar Joglekar comes from a family of working women and has worked in several top finance firms. She is a proud mother of two little girls. She is full of tips for young working mothers, things which she believes you need to plan well in advance, before the baby is born, so that you have childcare options ready and don’t have to rush when the actual need arises. Get a list of nannies or day-care centres close to home, and talk to mothers in your area to get feedback about these places. Finding a proper nanny or day care and settling your child in takes at least two to three months, she feels.

‘If there are many issues with the childcare system in the initial days, then a mother’s confidence is shaken to the core. She feels worthless and constantly questions her ability to be a good mother,’ she warns.

Amita Parekh is a partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). When she had her son, she used to be a consultant and her job involved considerable travel. Being part of a joint family, Amita had wonderful family support when it came to childcare. Even with all the support though, one needs to prepare oneself to rejoin, she feels.

‘Although I had an option to work from home for the first few months when I was doing an internal project, I made it a point to go to office and wave him bye so that he knows Mom is gone. I feel as kids get older, it becomes tougher for them to accept the fact that the mother has left.’

She recommends starting slowly and then ramping up, making the transition easy for the baby as well as the mother. ‘I started slow, so for the first six months I did internal projects, then worked part-time at 60 per cent, increased it to 80 per cent and as the kid just started nursery, planned to be back to 100 per cent. What this helped me do is slowly and steadily make the kid and myself used to the fact that Mom has long hours and cannot be part of every single event in his life. For the first fifteen to eighteen months, while he was still being breastfed, I did not travel overnight, then slowly started with select domestic trips and then did a few short international trips as well.’

‘Whether it is a house help or a day care, you need someone whom you completely trust, have personally observed closely and verified for all legal purposes. Spend at least a month before joining back, to observe if your child is comfortable and happy with the arrangement. It’s a good idea to instal a home camera or check with the day care for the same, just to be extra cautious,’ suggests Shweta Agarwal, an engineer–MBA who has recently turned entrepreneur. When the mother returns to work, she should be guilt-free and her mind must be at peace in the knowledge that her baby is in safe hands.

For people like me who barely got a month and a half as maternity leave, the idea of six months’ paid leave seems like a real perk. The option of an extended but unpaid break was always available to women earlier, but looking back, I suspect that since the rejoining date was open-ended, organisations rarely planned your career post the break.

Now, as Dhanashree, Amita and Shweta pointed out, the new mothers and their organisations are better placed to plan the ‘after’ life. It came as a surprise to me that there are many women who don’t want to exercise their right to the six months’ leave. The fear of missing out is so high that they opt to go back to work earlier.

It now seems obvious that when men are wary of taking even three weeks of paternity leave, women too, particularly in highly competitive careers like investment banking or management consultancy, feel that they will get left behind if they are out of action for six months. It is interesting that women in earlier generations only feared missing out on seeing their children grow up, but today’s woman experiences FOMO both at home and at work!

Excerpted with permission from Equal Yet Different: Career Catalysts for the Professional Woman, Anita Bhogle, Penguin Business.