Flying Coach!

While rushing into a meeting, it occured to me that I should write something about my current short business trip to US - and yes I had to fly coach :(

For starters, it was rather a last minute decision (not mine!) to fly down only for a week. The idea of being away from the family and flying soooo far to the US of A, was giving me a tug of anguish.

The family was well prepared for it but preparing S for one week on 'no Mommy'was hard. From experience, I can say that it is always better to prepare kids for the future- which could even be a week of lots of time with granparents and father. S is quite a reasonable kid, I must say, provided you give him the right reasons!

Until I was about to catch a taxi for the airport, he asked me multiple follow-up questions:

- "Why do you have to go?"
- "Who is your boss - is that a he or a she?"
- "Can i speak to he/she? I will scold them for this."
- I was trying to show him the positive side (read bribe) of toys from US, he goes "Why? I don't need more toys? My room is full of them"...:(

Ending it with the most dreaded statement - "Mama, don't go!". That very moment, you would want to give it all up, put in your papers, tell your bosses - family is priority, and just be with your baby. Finally, I did manage to explain to him which perhaps would mean little to him. Phew. These goodbyes are emotionally draining.

Here I am in NY now, leading a forced bachelor life, which too is not bad, except that I am not used to it. This is my second time to US and the first thing that strikes are the beautiful country roads lined with trees in fall colours - quite picturesque. The other thing that strikes you is technology, overdone sometimes! And, the third which is different from last time I was here is the Presidential election and signs of recession everywhere. Whichever form of media you pick, its either Obama or the banks. Overall, this has been a nice experience to take back.

Travel for working mothers is somewhat inevitable. The best thing (which may not be wise sometimes) to do is to accept only the critical ones and then limit the duration. There are some professions, such as consulting, where one has to be at the client site for 4 days a week and be back for the weekend - great profession when you are single, difficult with kid, impossible with kid(s)! As you go along, the choice between the travel-linked assignments, which add tremendous weight to your CV and your priorities, is a tough call. You got to be lucky if your management would understand that - infact, they should. After all, they have to believe in diversity!! :)

So how do you manage...?

Believe me, since the time I have starting working after having a kid (or even perhaps concieved), which is about almost five years, I would have answered this question a zillion times, to every colleague/friend/aquaintance/relative we met.

Following is a short description of how we manage our chaotic, highly dependable (!) lives:

We got Susheela home when she was about 18 years old from an agency in Delhi as a baby care taker and domestic help. Living in Delhi was a dream as I would call my parents/sister (all in town) even when S (our son) would sneeze. Susheela was this timid and shy girl who towards the end of two years of staying with us, I can proudly say, became confident and independent. We were this one big (3+our maid) happy family - son was growing up to be inquisitive, bratty and fiercely independent – much to the delight of this working couple who were incidentally doing fairly ok in their respective careers squeezing out as much "quality time" as possible.

Life was so far smooth albeit a few hiccups here and there but thrown into a tizzy by second half on '07 - We moved to Bangalore and after few months of pleading and prodding, Susheela finally decided to go to Assam to meet family, dashing all our hopes to dirt. To be fair, she was with us for more than two years, like "family", so we gave her a happy farewell with my mind already getting flooded with THE worry of finding a trustworthy and long lasting domestic help and her training!

Next morning, we called for a local 9-6 help – although my job is/was/always demanding, I adjusted to her schedule. She worked for less than a month, took her salary with which she would buy clothes for her kids for Christmas and went off for two days vacation, which got extended to 10 days (so I was informed on a roaming mobile phone) and then to infinity. They too have a life and you got to be FAIR!

I was reeling under tremendous pressure -- new city, new job, no domestic help, a silent crusader running on two little legs, a TV addict but extremely supportive hubby – I pressed the panic button and shamelessly sent an SOS to my parents in Delhi. Poor guys came flying, always there to bail my sister and me of such petty but life changing issues.

With them around life was great, S was happiest although my hubby was complaining of over exposure to in-laws! We posted my parents-in-law to be the next in line and with that we covered the first quarter of the year peacefully but the hunt was always ON!

We got lucky the fourth time - our fourth maid stayed for almost two years and has now chosen to get married and you know, settle down (not bothering to work and all unlike mere mortal like me!). While the hunt in ON again and guess who is coming to our rescue now - my parents in-law! God bless our parents, they are never annoyed at our SENSEX-kind of lives. If you ask me what keeps me going, its theirs and my dear hubby's support. Undoubtedly!

Our life’s like that and all the Susheelas make it quite happening. Sometimes I wonder if my constant struggle to balance ‘life: read marriage -motherhood-relationships-home’ vs. ‘work’ is really worth it. Will I be less paranoid, will life be more peaceful, less stressful – may be yes, may be not. I will, however, keep you posted about our progress in the subsequent quarters and many others…

Disclaimer: With no intentions to hurt anyone's sentiments!