Dual-income parents wrestle with child rearing

JAKARTA (JP): The girl was a trouble-maker. She refused to do her homework, did not listen to the teacher and liked to bug her classmates.

The teacher called her parents and eventually found out the cause of her mischievousness -- lack of attention from her parents.

"Both of her parents work," Darmadi, director of Ursula Elementary School, said.

He did not mean to paint a bleak picture of children of dual- income parents. No. The problem, he said, was not that both parents work, but how they raise the children.

"We have many good students whose parents both work. On the other hand, there are also students who are naughty even though the mothers don't work," he said.

Mothers who work outside the house have a dual role. Despite their hard work outside the house, often, they still have to do the household chores and take care of the children.

Every day Arum R. Kusumanegara, an anthropologist, wakes up at 4:30 a.m. She prepares breakfast and bathes the children -- a five-year old and a five-month old -- before getting ready for work. At 7 a.m., about half-an-hour after the baby sitter and the house maid come, she leaves the house.

At night, she wakes up now and then to change the baby's nappies. Sometimes her husband is also awake and helps.

"I don't mind nurturing my children. Sometimes my husband helps, but he is quiet and does not communicate a lot with the children," Arum said.

As head of the research and development department of the Center for Child Information and Policy Studies, Arum knows well the impact of dual-income parents on the children. The parents might be too busy to pay attention to the kids, which can have negative effects on the children's development.

Children often have an insatiable curiosity and ask their parents things all the time. If their parents arrive home exhausted, they might be too tired to answer all the questions or be tempted to give the children easy answers which don't satisfy them.

"As a result, the children might become unwilling to ask and lose their curiosity," Arum said.

Even though Arum realizes that her working in the office might affect the children's development, she does not want to spend the rest of her life as a full-time housewife.

"I want to be able to realize my ideas and make best of my potential," she said.

She started working when she was still an undergraduate student at the University of Indonesia, more than 10 years ago. In the beginning, she worked for financial reasons. Now she is married and her husband is financially secure. But she does not want to resign, saying that she wants to express herself to the full.

As the door to education is opened ever wider for women, there are more women who pursue their career outside the house for personal achievement.

Not all men agree, believing that husbands are the breadwinners and women should stay at home. Even if the women have to work to make ends meet, they should do the domestic work and take care of the children as well.

A polling by Tiara magazine showed that men did not mind women working as long as they were not their wives.

Teguh Samudra, a lawyer, is one of a few men who supports his wife's career as a businesswoman.

"I fully respect her human rights," he said.

He is also willing to have a share in the nurturing of the children. When he has time, Teguh tries to have lunch at home or call the children from the office.

He does not worry about the development of his four children, either, saying they are doing fine at school.

"My second child, who is at her first year of junior high school, is really good at maths," he says proudly.

So what is the problem with children of double-income parents?

Utami Munandar, a professor of psychology at the University of Indonesia, says that at the age of between one and five, children badly need to be close to their parents, both their mother and their father.

"They need the role model of both the father and the mother, otherwise they will experience personality problems when they grow older," the professor said.

Many feel that quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to how much time parents should spend and communicate with their offspring, Utami said.

Children, especially at an early age, need both quality and quantity of time to develop their emotional and rational intelligence which will play an important part in their lives.

Babies and toddlers are still in the process of self- identification which they get from their intimates, their parents, grandparents and even baby-sitters, Utami explained.

The role of parents can be filled by other persons provided that they are consistent in their approach, otherwise the children will be confused.

Ideally, grandparents or baby sitters have similar ideas about rearing children. Unfortunately, many of them have their own concepts. This will certainly affect children's development, she said.

"I suggest that parents work part-time or postpone their careers when their children are still very young. This will be very good for their children," Utami said.

Utami said it's very hard for working parents to work full- time because many companies do not provide them with necessary facilities such as flexible working hours, or day-care centers.

Ideally, both parents spend as much time as possible with the children. But most parents can't do that because they have to work. Paternity leave is unknown in Indonesia, but in accordance with government rules, many companies give women a three-month maternity leave. That is good, but not enough. We need to accommodate working parents better, Utami said.

The population is growing while natural resources are shrinking. People -- both men and women -- have to work harder to survive, to feed their children and to improve their situation. Proper time management and facilities to accommodate dual-income parents are required. Otherwise, all that hard work can become a boomerang. (sim/raw)