The Rise Of Fleximoms In India

For career women that refuse to choose between their work and their families the new word is balance, says DNA India.

They want to be around when their kids need them, and they also want meaningful careers. And now there’s finally some hope they can expect to have their cake and eat it too, as Indian companies, according to a new business survey, show an increasing readiness to recruit mothers on ‘flexitime’.

If you are on a call with Anika Parashar Puri, business head of services at Mahindra Retail, you’ll have to put up with the din of children screaming in the background. Her colleagues are by now quite used to her telling them to ‘stop crying’ and ‘get off the bed’ during an important discussion. “I work full-time from home and my kids are always around me,” says Puri unapologetically. Once, her four-year-old son Nirvann walked in with soiled hands while she was on a call with her boss. “Wash your hands,” ordered Puri, to which her boss curtly replied that his hands were already clean.

Puri isn’t willing to change any of this, not for the world. She refused to give up on the grind after she became a mother. “I am nothing without my kids, but I am also nothing without my work.” Today, she is responsible for everything, right from the fragrance that will greet her customers at Mom & Me, Mahindra’s chain of stores that sell baby products, to training child birth educators, and she does it all from a tiny cubicle she has built for herself at home.

Working from home, however, does not make it easier, claims Puri. Her routine can leave a 9 to 5 professional panting. Apart from being at the beck and call of two children and stressful deadlines, there are constant interruptions to pay bills, change diapers and handle homework. Plus she is required to travel to another city at least once a month.

“I keep telling myself it can’t get worse than this. It will only get better.” These days Puri is busy with a new project – she regulary writes about her daily struggle on her blog she aptly calls, ‘The diary of a burnt out supermom’.

Photo by livingonimpulse

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