I choose not to take a position with either side. Personally, I am not yet at a stage where I need to make that choice. Also, I truly believe that each woman makes the choice for herself based on the situation that she is in, and how best she can handle it, at that point in time.

However, I do believe, that women (and men), by positioning the debate as between SAHMs Vs Working Moms, are doing a huge disservice to themselves. Each individual's choice is important to herself and her family, but if we are to examine the phenomenon as a whole, we need to take a step back. We need to step back at the larger picture and understand the whole background of where these choices spring from, what enables these choices and whether all choices are truly choices.

To do this, we need to look at a couple of things. Lets first look at work itself. How do we define work? If we define work as a service that is provided by someone, in return for a measurable compensation, that leaves out all work at home which may be compensated by love, security, internal satisfaction -- but is not measurable as compensation. On the other hand, if we define work as any service that is productive, i.e. "it occupies the person's time", it is too vague and includes leisure activities as well. Perhaps then it could be defined as any activity that occupies your time, but is useful to one other person at least. Looked at this way, home making becomes a service like any other, since cooking, cleaning, child-care and education, care for the elderly, paying bills are all services that offer great value to other people.

Great. We agree then, that there is work which is performed outside the home, and work which is performed at home. Things become more dicey however, when we start assigning a value to both kinds of work.

Work outside the home is usually paid, (though a small fraction could be volunteer work). Further, work outside the home often involves skills that one has been trained for, be it mechanical work, nursing, management positions, clerical work, anything. Work outside the home also allows one to interact with other people, gain new friends, learn new things. Working inside the home offers tremendous benefits to one's own family. It is not usually viewed as a specialised skill that one is trained for, though many would argue that cooking for example is a skill that not everyone has. Typically, it meant less learning, less fresh interaction, though for an urban, affluent person today, facilities such as online learning mean that being home is no longer a barrier to learning. Still, it is not usually associated with one, compensation, and two, specialised skills. It is not surprising then, that as human beings acquire more and more specialised skills, and want more and more things to buy, work outside the home is viewed as a more superior activity, even if we argue that home-making is equally critical for a society as a whole.

Traditionally, men did the work outside the house, and women, the home-making work, and everything 'seemed' hunky-dory. UNTIL. Women also started acquiring more specialised skills, and started feeling left out of an opportunity to use these. At the same time, they could not discard their traditional roles of home-making.

The situation gets more complex with the arrival of a child. Biologically, for the first six months to a year, definitely the mother is more qualified to take care of the child, until the child is weaned. Post this period, some women choose to stay home and some to get back to work. Instead of deriding either choice, we should look at what is it that enables some women to get back to work, while others decide not to.

First of all, it is so deeply ingrained in most of us that the mother is the primary care-giver, that it is very difficult to even imagine a situation where at the end of say, 9 months, both parents really think, "Hey, which one of us should take a career break?" (In cases where the couple thinks its essential for a parent to be with the child and not leave the child at a day-care). The society we live in today, does not recognise men as suitable care-givers. Men are usually treated as children themselves, needing care! Where are the companies that offer paternity leave? Or at a much smaller scale, how many companies appreciate men taking time off to care for a sick child? It is somehow much easier for women employees to ask for such things. This is of course a double-edged sword -- while women employees find it easier to be "accommodated", they may also be viewed as not ambitious enough/not CEO material. These attitudes, around us, and internalised by us, make the mother the default caretaker. Naturally then, the "choice" falls upon her alone.

To my mind, this is not a complete choice. It forces almost every woman to make the choice, AND it does not allow men this choice in most cases. I can just imagine the brouhaha that would be created by friends, family, colleagues -- if ever a man decided to be a SAHD. Its not an easy choice, and most women recognise that in their hearts. Again, in the Indian culture at least, the perception of man as primary bread-winner is still strong. Most women marry someone who earns more than them, if not equally. Hence, when it comes down to dropping a job, it is a far more difficult option for the man who is the primary bread-winner and is expected to play this role well.

Then, what about the parents who decide that its not imperative for them to spend all day with an infant? For those who have their parents around, its a blessing. For others, they need to depend on day-care centres, which is still very much an emerging industry in India, and has all the unpredictability of an emerging industry. A few bright stars, and largely inconsistent quality, no 100% assurance for the rest. Linked with "mom-primary-care-giver", the absence of good quality day-care centres in sufficient numbers is another reason why women choose not to go back to work.

Again, if you are a parent who decides that it's fine to leave your child in day-care, our society today doesn't always respect those choices. There will always be a 100 people around you, who tell moms especially, that you've abandoned your baby, if in not so many words. It's easy to say that who cares what the world thinks? But these young moms are often battling with themselves, as they make a difficult choice. It's even more difficult for them to confront other people, who all think they know better. Un-supportive families (husbands/in-laws) could be another problem for women who want to get back to work, but find little help at home.

We also need to look at the way our workplaces are structured. Most workplaces are structured around getting things done in a particular way, at a particular time. They focus on the means, not the ends. This leaves little option for flexibility in timings, place of work etc. On the other hand, if organisations were to focus on the ends, and allow employees various means of achieving them, both women and men could blend their work and home lives so much better. One may ask of course, why should companies do this? Well, companies should do this not just to be women-friendly. Companies should do this because any company which is family-friendly offers its employees a great reason to stay back. Everyone knows how much harder it is to re-hire and re-train for a position, as opposed to an existing employee. Now, even if this employee were to take a 6 month break, it may still be worthwhile for the company to manage those 6 months by allocating the work among others. A new person would take up 4 of those 6 months settling into the groove anyways. This may of course be easier for some jobs (especially white collar) than others. But if a company has this mindset, options could always be found. For routine jobs, for example, temporary workers could be used.

Once all these are addressed -- families truly have options to choose whether someone should stay at home. If yes, who should?, and if not, how should the situation be managed?, or whether a combination of being at home, and going out to work is feasible. Of course, there may be some lucky women today, who are in this situation and have chosen to stay at home, after evaluating all options. Good for them! They are probably highly educated women in any case, who will not face trouble findings jobs after a few years. Until the base issues are addressed however, it is completely wrong on our part to frame the debate as being between working moms and SAHMs. By talking this way, we do a huge disservice to both sides, and only hurt these women, both of whom are doing the best that they can.

Rather than focusing on which camp of women is in the right, we should be addressing the base issues, which each of us can do, in a small way. I am putting down below some thoughts on what we can do, feel free to add on more!

1. Lobby in your company for paternity leave/extended paternity leave (where maternity leave is already a norm). Talk to HR informally. Get people at least talking about it. Only when workplaces start recognising men as dads, will men too truly be able to get involved in child care. At least they should have the option. That in turn will relieve the pressure on women.

2. Women -- Try and avoid positioning yourself as the sole authority/responsibility for child care. Of course, this depends on how supportive the husband is, but at least internally, we have to start believing, not just saying, that two people bring a child into this world. Beyond the biologically dictated breast-feeding, there are many things men can do, and do well.

3. If you are single or don't have kids yourself, don't look at people in your workplace who have children as getting some special benefits. Kids are the way for society to grow. Read Bitch Phd's fantastic post on this subject here. Instead of feeling envious of people who take time off due to a kid's emergency, why not lobby for the workplace to be more fair to everyone and ensure a good work-life balance? Don't try to put them down, try to bring your needs up instead! This will help so much to avoid a situation where working women are seen as easing off. It will instead help to establish that everyone has a life and needs time to attend to it, outside of work.

4. Stop believing that men have a special duty to be THE bread-winner in the family, and stop expecting that the man you marry must make more money than you do. Unless men achieve freedom from prescribed gender roles too, women alone will not -- we will only end up doing both jobs. Start wondering to what extent gender really dictates the roles that you take up.

5. Entrepreneurs amongst you -- maybe child-care is a good business for you to think of! We would all benefit by having more good quality day-cares in all areas, rather than in select upmarket areas only. Think about it.

6. Again, if you are someone who runs their own business, see what you can do to make your workplace more family-friendly, while getting the work done at the same time.

And lastly, stop discussing which is better -- SAHMs or working moms. Recognise the fact that women are still the primary child-carers, at least in this country. Facing that expectation (internally as well as from society), each woman makes some very difficult choices. Rather than discussing whether individual choices are good or bad, try and see what can be done to help both men and women make the best choices they can.

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