Home’s the best place to work

For over four decades, I have been a homemaker and a career woman and I have come to the conclusion that the more satisfying of the two roles I play is the former. The emerging upwardly mobile professional may scream murder when she hears this but the only organisation, which gives maximum job opportunity to excel, and the right authority to innovate, is the home. Here, the woman has neither to report to anyone nor is answerable for her decisions. She is the ‘sole’ ruler and everyone carries out her orders. She is definitely indispensable in this organisation and her absence not only disturbs the even tenor of working, but also casts a depressing gloom over the atmosphere.How many women run their home on sound management principles? How many bring to it the professional touch, which can transform a mere drudgery into a skilled performance? Why don’t women think of a ‘home’ as an economically viable ‘industry’ which when run well, can yield profits not necessarily in terms of money but in terms of those intangible yet precious fruits like -self satisfaction and peace.

A home is an excellent training ground for management. A homemaker is the ideal MD who has an overall charge of running the place efficiently. She has a definite budget to operate and a staff to motivate. Her charter of duties entails purchase, inventory, material management, stock taking and planning. She has to individually manage each of these areas and take decisions on her own though she might consult her spouse and children. Besides managing day-to-day functioning of the household, the homemaker has to also look into other factors like children’s schooling, books, tuition, clothes and other needs; keep up the family PR activities by calling on relatives or entertaining them, preserve the family heritage by following customs and traditions; look to the upkeep and maintenance of the household properties.

Unlike her job in the office, here she cannot afford to take any kind of leave. Perhaps, sick leave is the only one she can safely avail of but she cannot get away from remote control managing anyway!

I cannot understand why we women want to trade this fabulous employment opportunity we have, for some superfluous activity outside the home. If only we were to take our duties as homemaker seriously, we can save ourselves a lot of heartache and rat race tensions, which a career poses. So many of our talents go to waste when we set out to work because in an impersonal organisation we become automatons – doing what we are dictated to do. On the other hand from the citadel of our own homes where we are the ultimate in authority, we can fruitfully convert our leisure time to developing cottage industry and pursuing lucrative hobbies. We leave behind a cozy comfortable home to spend eight hours in a tension ridden, competitive atmosphere in the name of achieving success in life. We are running after an illusion, leaving behind reality because in life, that work has meaning, which gives you what you want, the way you want. Happy is the woman who realises the potential of being a homemaker and the queen of her home