Should a woman give up working after six months of maternity leave or two years? Should corporates increase their flexi-timing for supporting young mothers? Work-life balance? Hey girl, at what degrees of its tilt will sine theta and cosine theta coincide? (I was always terrible at math, so pardon me if it rarely does!). And why is this tremendously complicated question never asked of a man?

When we were kids, no one told us to dream different because of our gender. (Thank God Taliban [Images] was non-existent then!) 

My friend's husband, for example, wanted to become a truck driver and she wanted to be a banker. (The one who wanted to be a truck driver, may now be planning business strategy, but one can always allow some flexibility). Now after blissful years of being DINKs (double income with no kids), there comes a baby, so bright and beautiful that they start planning her future after 18 years.

"Harvard, no less for my precious," says father bear. "LSE, Oxford and then McKinsey," coos mamma bear! Goldilocks blows a bubble!

The obvious caretaker who is "supposed" to quit the fast track is the mother. Only problem is that, mommy herself had been such a baby 30 years before, and her parents had had the same big dreams for her. So should she suddenly be forced to quit her enjoyable work as senior bank manager to sit at home all day long?

Ah, now cometh that wonderful word called "free will".

If mamma wants to enjoy time with her baby, let her do so. If she wants to fly to Switzerland [Images] for a seminar, let her do so. If she wants to take some time off and then later rejoin service, it's her life, dearie! Why should anyone tell this intelligent young mother, that "this is the way things ought to be?"

Isn't there something called "live and let live?" (In the case of Goldilocks, father bear decided to work from home for a while).

To me, the greatest sign of empowerment is the freedom to make one's choice.

If you feel like climbing a tree, by all means do it. If you would prefer to cook prawns instead, do it wholeheartedly. And incidentally, if you would rather design a microchip, girlie, I am all for it too! Just one condition: Never insist that the way you do it, has to be the way for me. I might not want to climb a tree, cook prawns or design a microchip. I may just want to be left alone to follow my own light.

And sine theta and cosine theta can go take a jump!

The author is an IAS officer working in the UP cadre. She has a degree in  electronics engineering from Government Engineering College, Thiruvananthapuram, and a Masters in Personnel Management from XLRI, Jamshedpur. She is the proud mother of two daughters.

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