Dilemmas Of A Woman

Career women fight to balance home and work. Dominic CostaBir spots a counterintuitive growth hack that works for married women in India.

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We have women achievers like Indra Nooyi, Sudha Murthy, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Priya Paul... Successful career women, yet they manage and balance home. We may be tempted to believe that these women had education, wealth and family support in larger doses than the common man... oops, woman. I've personally experienced simple yet strong, hardworking women with humble beginnings who made a better life than the hand they were dealt.

Case Study 1: Maggie prepares breakfast and packs her 3 kids off to school. Impeccably groomed, she commutes to start her 9 to 5 job as a Telephone Operator-cum-Receptionist with Escorts Ltd. Her husband's job with the Indian Railways calls for extensive travel and so he is hardly home to help with the kids. The maid handles lunch and the kids when they return from school. Back home, Maggie prepares dinner and takes up the kids' lessons. She retires 37 years later at age 58 but 2 years down the line, she returns to work and stays till she is 67. Superwoman she was, and also my mother.