How important is work-life balance when it comes to parenting?
‘I don’t believe in work-life balance’ - Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy
Those seven words that caused quite a stir in the media recently. Now Mr. Murthy is entitled to his opinion, I mean the man has built a tech company from the ground up, no one can deny that. Sure he made sacrifices and put his work ahead of everything else, but that was his choice. Just like him, I too have an opinion and made a choice. I would much rather go with the term work-life management.
I was very clear from the start that when I do get married, I want a partner who will have her own career and work towards her ambitions and be financially independent. My desire to have a working wife was to ensure that both of us get enough world experience to be able to share with each other and our child. Making a family together is right up there, but so is professional ambitions and building a career. This also allows both of us to share equal responsibilities of raising our child and simultaneously making a career.
But with both of us working, we had to be mindful of the fact that we needed to balance work and life, and if we didn’t put that into practice before the child came along, it would have been a difficult exercise later on.
When I think back to those days, I clearly had a problem of not knowing when to stop working. My wife on the other hand was very disciplined about this, she knew when to stop and focus on the family. It’s not something easy to change but I was pushing myself to make it happen.
From the beginning my wife used to tell me (and till this day continues to remind me that I am married to her and not the job) knowing when to switch off from work is harder than we think. In order to be considered a responsible parent (especially a dad) you need to start really early and stop the unconditional dependence on your partner for any and every parenting duty.
In today’s day and age the child needs the attention of both parents.
Last September 2023, I came across a study conducted by the University of Leeds that has found that children do better at primary school if their fathers regularly spend time with them on interactive engagement activities like reading, playing, telling stories, drawing and singing. Dr Helen Norman, Research Fellow at Leeds University Business School, who led the research, said: “Mothers still tend to assume the primary carer role and therefore tend to do the most childcare, but if fathers actively engage in childcare too, it significantly increases the likelihood of children getting better grades in primary school. This is why encouraging and supporting fathers to share childcare with the mother, from an early stage in the child’s life, is critical.”
I was so happy to read this, as it took me back to my days as a new dad where I always wanted to spend time with my daughter not just doing fun stuff but also taking on my part of the responsibilities and it was a very conscious decision for me to ensure that I manage my work to ensure quality time is being spent with my new-born and wife. The idea was to constantly engage with our daughter.
To all the new parents, I recommend the following to manage work and life:
- Chart out your individual responsibilities, so you don’t have to be told what to do of your own child. If one parent is responsible for a particular task then adjust your work timings accordingly. (dads read this point again)
- When it’s WE time then keep your devices away, I understand it is very difficult for us to do that these days but try, block an hour or so without touching your phone. It’ll make a world of a difference
- Keep practising this and start early because this is habit forming, usually us dads are culprits in taking work calls during family time but we are trying hard to get away from it all
- Yes, sometimes urgent work demands your time, in these cases I take work home but only to work at night for an hour or so after wife and daughter are asleep. I make sure this is not a regular habit.
- Get a lot of rest, we sacrifice sleep in order to doom scroll… STOP
Coming back to our question!
How important is work-life management when it comes to parenting?
Well let’s just put it this way, Your work is NOT your family. Your Family is your family. Your job can fire you, but your family won’t.
