Shabiha Nur Khatoon
Both mom and dad are tied up at office and don’t come home before 7.30 pm. A majority of school children while away the idle summer vacation by watching TV and spending long hours chatting with friends on Facebook and
telephone
Yippee! Summer vacations are here again! Summer vacations are right round the corner and it is the perfect time for outdoor fun and activities. It is time kids go on a long break from their schools and studies.
Summer vacation is a time for relaxation for families, too. After months of heavy schedules, stressful schooldays, and hardly any time to connect with family, women of the family, too, get a little time to spend with their families.
Women usually have wonderful memories of summer vacations when in the idle mornings they just don’t feel like getting up from bed; but kids, these days, are missing the lovely, idyllic days because both parents are full-time professionals. And the lives of working women are pretty full. Between professional, personal, and domestic lives there is a lot that needs to be accomplished on an average day – and then it is all repeated the next morning.
For a working mother, summer vacation can be burdensome because it involves finding some form of childcare. In that regard, sometimes working mothers engage their kids in some activities at home, summer camps or pack them off to their grandparents so that they can go to work. While other families have fun during summer break, working mothers go on a guilt trip because of their lack of time for their children. It is that time of year when working moms would want to quit their jobs because of the workload at office plus the fact that the kids are at home 24×7. We chatted up a few working ladies and coerced them to dilvulge their summer vacation plans…
Ujjawala Salve from Mumbai says she loves to spend time with her child during summer vacation, but, as a busy working mother, she doesn’t have the luxury of taking time off to rest, relax and play with her kid. “During the long vacation both mother and child want to spend some quality time together, so in that case, a lot of parents take a week off every summer so that they can take road trips, visit some exotic place, or visit a out-of-town relative. Parents who don’t have too much vacation time take a few days off and visit theme parks or visit their hometowns and let the kids get pampered by their grandparents. I also send my daughter to her grandparent’s house, and she loves to visit them. Usually, I don’t get enough time to spend with her as I return from office around 7 pm, and she has tuitions at 7:30 pm. Her tuition gets over by 9 pm after which it’s time for dinner and bed. So, I find that the weekend is the perfect time to spend with my daughter; Saturday and Sunday we spend together and we really have fun.”
Amrita Beura from Bhubaneswar says it is really difficult, but one has to strike a balance between work and home. “Our kids may be excited about the break from school routine, and some lucky parents are looking forward to playing with their kids during the vacations, but other parents like me are finding it tough to enjoy the long holiday with my child. I make it sure to spend as much time with him as possible and it is my responsibility to look out for what is wrong and right with him. The time when my son needs me the most is in the morning and night, as in the evening he is happy in his world of fun and loves to watch TV; I always try to wake him up in the morning in a joyful mood and before to sleep in the night, I tell him good stories, and sometimes we also play indoor games to develop the personality of the child.”
