One would think going back to work after maternity leave would be easy. I mean our experience remains the same. Also, giving birth doesn’t reduce our mental faculties or give us amnesia so we are as competent as we were before bringing a life or two to this world, if not more. But still for some reason, getting back to work post-maternity leave is one of the toughest obstacles most women have to navigate.

Now it would be ridiculous if I speak only from my experience. It would be myopic and limited so I’m not going to do that. 

Over the years I have noticed that my antennas have always been particularly up when it comes to noticing women’s issues whether at the workplace or elsewhere. In my time as a working woman, I have seen several women face issues at work during pregnancy and even after that while joining back work post-delivery. And I speak from a collective experience of all those women spread over more than a decade here.

The challenges of going back to work after maternity leave. #MaternityLeave #WorkingWomen Share on X

So, how is going back to work post-maternity leave tough? Let me give you a glimpse as to why I say so.

One of the strangest things asked of women returning to work after a gap of even 6 or 7 months of maternity leave is that they need to prove that they have not forgotten all that they knew in that span. In the IT industry which I have observed from close quarters, it has to do with their programming skills or even their ability to deal with clients. Somehow the idea is that motherhood makes one less capable which I don’t have to tell you is ludicrous to even begin with. There is also always that mindset that on becoming mothers we are no longer serious about our careers. But these are just some of those aspects of it which concerns the workplace.

Before returning to work, a woman first and foremost needs to look for daycares or some sort of care for her child. There is an adjustment period, a new schedule that needs to be made, a safe system that needs to be put in place before she can return because even though we speak of an equal share of responsibilities between parents, child-rearing, especially in the initial years, is still very much a woman’s responsibility. A lot of it has to do with the fact that a child is dependent on the mother starting with breastfeeding but still, it could be a lot easier if fathers took more share in these starting years. So, trust me when I tell you that getting back to work is stressful and backbreaking. In my 3 plus years as a working mom, I have hardly seen 3 or 4 dads doing the pickup and drop at the daycares. It’s always the moms, always running from home to daycare to work and vice versa. You have to admit that’s not very relaxing.

I have seen so many of my colleagues and even myself rushing back home or to daycares to feed their children during lunch breaks in the first couple of months. The thing is when you have to do it every single day, through rain or sunshine, it is exhausting. You have no time to relax. The schedule is draining and frantic at best. Then there are probabilities of calls from daycares when your child is sick and you need to again rush. If anything, going back to work is exacting at least for the first few months where you are not only working doubly hard to prove that you are still the same working woman, capable and accountable but also to make sure your child is taken care of.

I remember how hard I worked when I got back to work so that they take me seriously. I had lunch at my desk while working, no tea breaks and no lunch breaks. My ‘lunch breaks’ were for going and checking on my daughter. I worked hard at the office and home. A simple glance at my blog posts from the initial years will tell you how utterly difficult that time was. But I had to stick it out. Unfortunately, the Indian Inc or for that matter the World Inc along with the set prejudiced mindsets when it comes to women, often succeed in pushing women out of the workforce in the first few years of joining back work while it takes a lot of doing to stay on. Sometimes the tradeoff doesn’t even seem worth it. I have myself had doubts several times over the past 3 odd years. 

If anything, going back to work is exacting at least for the first few months where you are not only working doubly hard to prove that you are still the same working woman, capable and accountable but also to make sure your child is taken care of.

When you look at dwindling statistics of women in middle and upper management roles, this is one of the reasons. Once we get back to work, it is very difficult to progress. Those that do are very few, some just drop out while some just hold on to whatever that can get. Think of it this way, as women we anyway need to prove we deserve a promotion by doing the work for that role before being given that role. There are several studies to prove that while men are given promotions based on what is expected of them. So, when a woman joins back work, she not only has to work twice as hard to show that motherhood has suddenly not made her unfit or less serious but she also has to fight all the other systemic barriers already in place for women. That’s why I say it’s not at all easy to go back to work post-maternity leave and then stick in the job.

Returning to work after maternity leave is a process that women need to acclimatize too. There are a couple of things that we could do to make it easier for us. From choosing a competent childcare provider to practising the new routine. It could be something like staying out a few hours a day and gradually increasing that time so that both the mother and the baby can adjust to the new system. Then there is the feeding system that the child would need to slip into. The trick is to not be abrupt, as much as possible. So, all of these factors need to be considered and this is just one part of the process. The challenges that the returning mothers face at work is something that exists on another level.

But of course, I haven’t even spoken about women who try to get back to work after a break of a few years. From having to explain ‘the break’ like it was a holiday involving wine in Paris to being questioned about what skill they might have possibly gathered while doing ‘nothing’ being a mother, there is a lot of unfairness they need to deal with. Then there is the notion that women wanting to return to work after a break aren’t in sync with the Industry. A lot of such women face a lot of difficulties in getting a job once they want to return to work. In fact, landing an interview too becomes a challenge let alone a job offer. I have friends who have landed jobs in positions much below their experience levels and with much lower salaries just because they were out of the workforce raising children. Yes, not even positions befitting their experience before going on the break. So, you see, it’s far from being easy. Yes, it’s probably easier to make policies for achieving gender parity but as I have said time and time again, it takes a lot more to bring policies from pdfs to a real execution. And very seldom does that happen.

But does that mean women are not doing it? No. They are and they will continue to do so. The odds are against us but we are nothing if not strong. If we can give birth experiencing pain that could crush all your bones, there is not much we cannot do, right? Also, the silver lining is it gets easier with time.

If you are a working mom, do share your tale of getting back to work. How tough or how easy was it?

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This post is part of the #FeministMondays series (previously called #IAmAFeminist series) on the blog. Inspired by a TEDx talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – We Should All Be Feminists, I intend to talk about the need for feminism through my posts, posts on my experience and observation as a female. I intend to talk about issues concerning women.

Join me and let’s work towards a world of gender parity. Remember, each voice counts. Tell me your story.