Before becoming a Mom myself whenever I noticed any other Mom dropping their kids to daycare or leaving home with nanny, I only thought about it as a logistics issue, the trouble of carrying 2-3 bags like your laptop, lunch, diaper bag, and a clingy kid who is crying for no reason, after all mom is dropping her to play with other kids.
Honestly, till you are a mom, you don't even notice other moms for anything more than a cute baby in their lap.
Fast forward, April 2013, I was 9 months pregnant and releasing the POC of my startup Yipeedo, my little one has been part of my meetings since he was in the womb :D and then he arrived on 5th April. Something magically transforms for a woman when she becomes a mom, and every decision starts involving a parallel thought process of "How will I manage this with him/her in his/her best interest?"
As you see in my prologue above, I was destined to have twins, my son Arjun and my startup Yipeedo and they grew together, sometimes one demanded more attention and I had to do that. I was lucky that my husband and I were together in our startup journey too and that helped us immensely. We used to take turns to be with the little one, while other attended an important meeting from the next room.
There was a time when my son was just four months old and on a three-hourly feed, we had an important deadline to be met in a week, and had to work out of an office near our home. My husband helped me out by being at office for longer durations while I used to feed my son and go back to work, I would come back in three hours, feed and go back. Yeah every single day, for seven days.
I did hire a nanny when my son started crawling, and was lucky to have my mother-in-law and Mom stay with me, one at a time, till he turned 2.5 years old. Personally, we found having a Grandma at home plus a nanny more beneficial for us and Arjun. I worked from home for 2.5 years before starting office, where I was able to follow a flexible schedule. Arjun has afternoon school and hence hubby and I followed different routines. I used to work from home in morning then drop Arjun to school and reach office 1:30pm, while hubby used to leave early and come early, picking Arjun from school and working from home in the evening.
During the time I work from home there are enough incidents when either the maid doesn't turn up, or my son gets super clingy and wants to just sit with me to play. Although he is quite well adjusted to the fact that I work, he knows he can take liberties when am working from home. So these days I have started giving him some printed/some handmade worksheets which keeps him busy colouring.
There are days when he wants me to be next to him and If I go out of room, within 5 minutes he will come searching for me and say, "mumma, take your laptop and come to toy's room" :P See the picture of both of us focusing on our own work :) clicked by my hubby.
I have done conference calls with my son literally sitting on my shoulders.
Today I have taken a break and currently am consulting with a Startup called F5 Escapes, an all women team with a mix of mums and young girls. The only thing we are concerned with is getting the work done with high quality and not really from where, or how many hours someone is working. If you are passionate and sincere that is all that matters. We have a small cozy office in Indiranagar, Bengaluru, where I can take my son anytime, and am sure he will be comfortable and I will be productive :)
As I write this, he is sitting next to me and playing with blocks and is having a constant conversation about what he is making with the blocks and how beautiful it looks. I do have to multitask physically and mentally but it’s all worth it. I am happy being a working professional and a mum. I didn't choose one over the other rather I am learning to manage both together.
(Shalini Nautiyal is a Product Management Professional with 11 years of experience, including 3 years as an entrepreneur. She now works as an Advisor Product and Strategy for F5 Escapes- An All Women Travel Company.)
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