Day care centres and working mothers A short story
Ayesha Siddika Biplobe
Putul was a happy woman until the birth of her first child. That was 10 years ago when Anik was born and her trouble with her husband began. In the end, she surrendered to keep the marriage intact.
Under pressure from her husband, a college teacher, Putul had to quit her well-paid job at a private company just because there was no one else to take care of the baby. She had to stay home for the sake of her child.
Working mothers in Bangladesh have problems almost similar to the Putul's. The only husband-wife-family -- both of them working -- suffer most. Such families do not get the services of the elder members such as mothers, aunts and mothers-in-law. They either depend on maid or mothers sacrificing their jobs for the infants.
Putul, however, is still a sad woman.
"Had there been day care centres at that time I could have sent my child there and kept on working," she says.
Women in Bangladesh are still far behind men. Still, education is spreading among women and many of them are working, including in white-collar jobs. At the same time, many are opting for small families. Joint families are becoming difficult to run in cities. Values about joint families are also changing fast.
Thus has emerged a new situation: working women becoming mothers with no one else to take care of the babies if they continue with jobs outside. What to do with the infants? Where to keep them and under whose care? Family elders are not always available and maids cannot be trusted. What happens then? Working mothers are confronting all these worries.
It's good that the maternity leave for working mothers has been extended to three months. What the mothers are supposed to do after the 3-month maternity leave. In absence of alternatives, such as day care centres for babies, many others are reluctantly opting for staying home with the babies.
However, changes are coming, though slowly. Day care centres, where working mothers can leave their babies on payment, are coming up - both in government and private sectors.
The government currently runs 32 day care centres across the country, including seven centres opened in July. Aparajeyo Bangladesh, an NGO, runs 12 day care centres in capital Dhaka. Costs in the centres differ. At state-run centres, one has to pay 250 takas in admission fees plus 300 takas a month for a baby's 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. stay.
At private centres, it takes for an infant 500 to 1,000 takas for half-day and double the amount for a full 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. stay. Babies, aged between six months and six years, are usually accepted.
The cost chart may discourage many to stay away from day care centres and depend on other options such as family elders or maids.
Under the 1995 labour laws, an organisation employing at least 25 women are to set up day care centres for working mothers' babies. The government is considering lowering the number of female employees to 20.
Not everyone in Bangladesh welcomes day care centres for babies.
Prof. A.H. Mohammad Feroz, director at National Mental Health Institute, says: "Day care centres are good for working mothers. But they are bad for the babies."
"Such children can suffer from inferiority complex," he observes. Another expert, Dr. Abdullah Al Mamun, says, "A child feels lack of security and may become abnormal living away from mothers for long hours."
Mohammad Shawkat Ali, a Women Affairs Ministry official in charge of day care centre project, disagrees with the mental health experts.
"This is a great advantage for working mothers. They can leave their children in the care of dependable people and work with less worries," he says.
Ovi, a five-year-old son of a working mother, says he enjoys his time in a day care centre. "I get to play with others and I like it here," he says. His mother is happy too. — NewsNetwork
References:
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/
