An important factor behind women’s decision to give up their career is the ‘forced separation’ from their kids while they work outside homes. Women, who decide to continue their jobs, have to spend several hours away from their child everyday. This in turn means that they miss out on little things like putting their baby to bed for an afternoon nap, or feeding them lunch themselves. The ‘freedom’ to comfort your baby if s/he needs you, the freedom to have your baby nearby is something that women usually loose if they work. So, you can either play an active role in everyday activities of your child or you can have a career, you can’t have both.

Ironically, it is the modernization with its claims of women’s emancipation that has introduced/initiated this ‘forced choice’. Rural, agrarian areas all over the world, from Pakistan to Africa, have a huge labor force of women who bring their children to work with them. The infants are swaddled and packed onto the mother’s back in a cloth sling, while the toddlers play around. The very idea of separating these two aspects, motherhood and work for economic gain, is urban and modern.

Day care centers, nannies, grandmothers and working from home have been some of the solutions urban women have developed to cope with this situation.

The crèche was established in October 2002. It is subsidized by the Institute, and is housed in its building. Children come with their parents and live with them. They play/fight/sing/draw pictures and take naps with the assurance that their parents are nearby. Thanks to the efforts of the crèche supervisor, Mahjabeen, and the caregivers, Zubeida and Surrya, the children are well settled and happy, in fact they want to go to the crèche on the weekends too. Parents are able to feed their child, taking their child out for a walk to the khokha, and drop in to tell them a story. The institute gains as it ‘saves’ a trained employee who would have otherwise left her job because of the dual pressures of parenthood and work.

The bottom line: Babies and banks can exist in harmony but the bank has to do its bit.