Companies should be required to provide day care

Ati Nurbaiti, Jakarta

A former teacher and ticketing agent for an airline sought work one day at a hat shop. She wasn't exactly seeking a career in sales; "I just needed to know if I could still work" after a long spell at home, she said.

She seemed satisfied with the answer and continued to seek money making opportunities during the periods when she could not leave the young ones for a full time job -- taking in boarders, for instance, or serving a stint as an Avon lady.

This was in the 1960s, my mother's admission of her need to regain her confidence in the workplace was surprising for someone who had raised four children alone after she was widowed at 38.

It would be safe to say the same anxiety has been common over the years among young mothers; it is the silent panic that grows during the years of a 24-hour cycle of managing the home and family that the women themselves do not consider "real work". Thus they wonder whether once they have the chance, they would be adequately equipped to face the rising competition in the workplace.

A job vacancy with an age limit of late 20s and three years experience shuts the door for aspiring women who have had no one to rely on but themselves in taking care of the children.

What goes largely undiscussed is that the most sought after age group for fresh talent, is not only the same period where one is eager to go out into the world, to test one's skills in the workplace and gain some independence (in part, your own money), it is also the period considered healthy for childbearing and breaking your back over toddlers.

It's a tough choice, which may help to explain the big gap between women's participation and that of men in employment. Statistics show that last year, in the 20-34 age group in the country there were some 25 million men compared to about half the figure for women.

Witness the many single, carefree-looking working women well into and over their 30s in Jakarta alone, and governments in Japan and Singapore, for instance, coaxing educated women with incentives to get married and have children for fear of slowing population growth and hence the work force.

True, Indonesians are relatively privileged with the advantage of the extended family and the cheap labor force helping to care for the home. But families are not as extended as they used to be, and in many cases, one parent staying at home means a very thinly spread single income.

And as lawyer and now legislator Nursyahbani Katjasungkana said, women should not have to choose between work and child care. Companies should be required to provide child care facilities.

It will never be a perfect world where childrearing in tandem with a career work out well for any parent. Nevertheless a law making it mandatory for companies to provide day care facilities would greatly increase the options for working parents. The awareness that child care is both parents' responsibility -- while child birth and breast-feeding is indeed a God-given role for women -- would define child care facilities not only as a woman's right, but the right to adequate care for children of all working parents.

As it is, women, anxious to live up to expectations would rarely speak up and even ask for child care facilities. Never mind that we've ratified the conventions against discrimination of women and the right of the child.

Given that child care should be a joint responsibility, the easy way out cannot be to follow the conservative line and ban women from working outside the home to ensure the well being of the next generation. A stressed out parent is not the best companion for a child for most of the day.

What follows should be a policy and change in mindset toward shifting the perception that childrearing is the sole responsibility of the mother. Mothers everywhere are worshiped for their noble, uncomplaining role -- but they are hard pressed to find help when they need it.

There is indeed last year's law on manpower which stipulates that employers should allow women employees to breast-feed their young during working hours. But nothing has followed in terms of regulations on standards for such facilities.

The few day care centers in the metropolis compared to millions of children of working parents attest to the absence of policy in this area.

Entire companies are clearly running on the advantage of the country having legions of poor families whose daughters seek work as maids, a job in which child care is lumped together with all other chores -- sometimes also washing the car and a bit of gardening too -- for barely a dollar a day.

Even with more day care facilities many parents here would still prefer to have their children cared for at home under a watchful eye, or a phone call, from their mothers or mothers-in- law. A day care center is still an alien concept for many a middle class woman whose exposure to such facilities has been the hair raising stories of neglect, not unlike the stigma attached to homes for the elderly.

But as this paper's interviews and coverage of some day care facilities have revealed, the women say they now have a better choice than having to trust a lone minder with their child for most of the day. Others have cited their youngsters learning social skills with their peers, a better scenario than that of the little brats hitting their sitters.

Policy makers could look to the early 20th century for inspiration -- plantation owners in the country were said to have institutionalized day care after they found that women workers were more productive when they had someone helping to look after their babies somewhere near them, as the women could concentrate on their work better.

Or policy makers could simply drop by Kramat Jati market in East Jakarta and watch the children play in a center. Before the day care center was set up, the children of workers there -- women who peel shallots -- were left to play on their own and rest on their makeshift mattress -- sacks of shallots.

It may be prudent for companies to provide day care facilities, if they can help lure more potential talented women in their prime back to the workplace and ensure that the babies get the breast milk and proper care they need. Not to mention gender equality -- and the need to end the exploitation that comes with the perception that caring for the home and family comes cheap.

The author is a staff writer for The Jakarta Post.