After being a full-fledged working woman, PRIYA KHANNA gave up her job to raise her child, only to discover that having so much free time comes with its pluses and minuses
Brought up by disciplined army doctor parents, I have grown up seeing my mother going to work every day. Whether she worked as a civilian doctor in a government job at Pune’s Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) or as a short service army officer posted all over the country or even as a part-time doctor in one of Delhi’s NGOs, post retirement, my mother never gave up working and took immense pride in her work and shone wherever she was planted.
I never thought consciously about a career for myself and just took it for granted that I would be a working woman too, just like Mom. I drifted through random jobs over the years, writing for a neighbourhood newspaper, managing and writing for a city centric website, teaching English in high schools, and so on, until I discovered instructional design. This was where I felt I belonged; I loved my work.
However, when I became a mother, life was bound to change. With support from my family, I was able to continue working while my baby was small, but when she started going to school, it became harder to manage home, job, travelling for work and my child.
I tried all possible solutions to continue working, but the guilt I felt when my child had problems at school and the stress of managing work, home and child on my own, while husband continued his work and travelled, finally drove me to the bitter conclusion that I needed to quit working if I wanted a less stressful life.
I found working online was equally demanding and finally I decided to quit working completely, choosing to become a lady of leisure, at least until my child was independent.
It was easy to make the decision; however, it was not so easy to pass time all day, as I hadn’t kept up with friendships over the years, hadn’t made any new friends who had spades of free time and my ex-colleagues were all busy at work. So I started doing a lot of things as apparently others did, watching TV, reading books, making solo trips to movie halls and even doing online shopping! Husband was a silent observer of my various activities and probably thankful that I didn’t expect him to entertain me!
But having so much free time comes with its own problems, as suddenly I had a lot of time to think. After hashing over my past mistakes and the wrongs done by others to me, I moved on to the transgressions of relatives, extended family and neighbours, until I ran out of stuff to brood over.
Spirituality was the next stop along my internal journey. I did my research on the subject and experimented with all kinds of spiritual practices, including yoga, walking in natural surroundings, doing guided meditation, practising mindfulness, patience and kindness to others and so on.
In spite of feeling more spiritual than before, I still felt sorry for myself for not being able to work as I wanted or being free to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I have silently raged over the inequities of our social structure and the ending of life as I knew it with the advent of motherhood. The same problems never seem to affect men.
But once my internal storms stilled, I consoled myself believing that probably this is my purpose in life, to bring up my child to the best of my abilities, and pass on some of my knowledge to make a better future generation.
During the ongoing pandemic, many others have probably found themselves being forced into situations that were not of their own choosing. There wasn’t much difference in my lifestyle post the pandemic, except that now I was watching a lot of Netflix all night and constantly nagging my daughter all day! I had been in training for the lockdown for years and consequently was already past all the frustration and anger that others were only now discovering.
As I watch the antics of gambolling monkeys in my Uttrakhand garden, I sip my tea and thank God for my blessings. I bow my head in prayer and accept what is, as I continue to go with the flow.
An offspring of two fauji doctors, Priya Khanna is now a full-time, stay-at-home fauji wife and mother to a teen terror and a gorgeous golden cocker spaniel. When she’s not reading, Priya Khanna is likely bingeing on a crime series on Netflix and reminiscing about the time when she was jetting all over the world for her work as an instructional designer with a Gurgaon MNC.
Very nice article on most common dilemma a working woman goes thru when she becomes a mother.
A very sincere description of the predicament of every woman as they go through that decisive moment of life when the challenge of child rearing faces them point blank, more so for those working moms who struggle to make both ends meet which no male person can genuinely understand.
I have personally believed, at least this one significant aspect of a woman makes her stand one step taller than man and I have always humbly read the word ‘woman’ as “wow-man”.
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And another aspect of this write up points at that universal conflict encountered by every human being and that is “Man’s search for meaning”, which we seek so unaware through various modes and means. This as such is the greatest existential question which very few can solve being authentic.
The process of this fight & the fusion reached is very beautifully said by Priya Ji in just one line, which in a nutshell tells the story of her conflict & how she pacified it:
“…once my internal storms stilled, I consoled myself believing that probably this is my purpose in life, to bring up my child to the best of my abilities…”
Yes, this as such is the very ennobling story of a representative character to find her meaning of life…we too can find our meanings of life and feel accomplished, rightly has it been said, we have to go through our own storms to overcome it!
Thank you Priya Khanna ji for this inspiring article.