I was thinking about myself, and other women of my kind, .. the formally educated, economically independent  women who work outside home and who have also chosen to raise a family. Recently I had read an academic research  paper which suggested that the extant family conditions of a child , the crucial role of the early family atmosphere and values determine to a large extent how the pre-school and early school children from dysfunctional/disadvantaged families fare in later life. [http://aditi-ray.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/04/investing-in-disadvantaged-children-for-better-social.htm ].     Of course the study had its focus on suitable policy interventions to make the disadvantaged come up in life and contribute to development, but none the less my mind was ticking……

If you care to observe, although many women of today are self reliant economically and are in the race of climbing the professional ladder despite raising a family, they are able to realize their ambition on the pillar of strength and support from other women.  If these other women, mostly mothers or mothers in law did not lend that support at the crucial time, many a professional ambition of women could have remained unfulfilled. Anything can wait but nurturing a child’s mind in the formative years can not… it is indeed a trade off, where the mother-surrogate women extend that affection and support of nurturing the children’s mind  and sense of emotional security, while the biological mother is working  outside the home. While ‘quality time’ is important, ‘quantity time’ is no less important, and therefore all mothers who exercise a choice to stay out of the job market for the sake of  bringing up their children the right way, are, in fact doing  the larger society a great favour.   

What I am trying to say is that IMO, the contribution of   the women who stay at home  to nurture and provide the emotional security to children at pre school and early school stage should also  qualify to be considered as desirable ‘ interventions and investments’ that a society makes for better productivity and better human resource for tomorrow…