Plight of Working Mothers harder during COVID-19

PCTHOMAS

The COVID-19 outburst has compelled schools, crèches and day-care centers to shut their doors. In response, many working women with their tiny kids are now struggling between household chores and office works with a sudden increase in child care responsibilities. Working women are continually battling, keeping up a balance between their personal and professional lives while at home around their kids in the Covid-19 pandemic. What is more, the situation has hit the women-folk hardest. They are persistently battling, keeping up a harmony between their own and professional lives and their life at home around their children at the time.

One of the working women shares: “I used to drop off my four-year-old child at a daycare home en route workplace and get him back while returning. This was our everyday practice during the working days until the pandemic broke out. After the pre-schools and childcares were shut down following lockdown, my husband and I are completely befuddled. My husband was forced to choose work-from-home option with a less salary since I have to attend office now. How can a father be a mother?!  We don’t know how long it can be done.”

Transforming into the status of motherhood is one of the most unfathomable happenings in a working ladies' life. Nothing gives her more delight than holding her infant in her arms. Yet, for certain working women it is challenging to live fully her motherhood during the continuous flare-up of coronavirus pandemic. Fear, uneasiness and sentiment of vulnerability have gripped them terribly at this difficult time.

Motherhood is not an easy task particularly in the event that you are a working employee. The added stress of work can make you depleted as well as put you in a difficult situation of not having the option to invest enough energy with your kids.

Having professional career makes a woman find her task at home, overwhelming and demanding. This may make her on edge and put her in despair that can even aggravate it. This is very conceivable particularly in the current circumstance when COVID-19 pandemic has constrained all working moms, just like other professionals to work from home.

Women are usually very passionate in whatever they do and they are accustomed to overseeing nearly everything alone. In the present situation, working women find it hard to balance their commitment to their work by which they earn for their family and at the same time commitment to care for their children adequately. Under this circumstance, they have no other option but to concentrate on their work, finding an alternate way of dealing with the situation at home with the help of their r relatives who can deal with their children comfortably.

Certainly family is important similarly, the working women who are light of the family too are important. So you, working women, you need to take at least 30 minutes daily to spend doing things you would like to do. You can even simply relax and enter into the privacy of your self away from others. This will help quiet you down, bring down your worries and make you more joyful and satisfied. Stay updated with best Blog PC Thomas

Elderly deserve serious attention in the Covid times

If the India government tries to follow this method nationally, it will obviously be a blessing for the national old aged ones in their life.

P C  THOMAS

COVID-19 has impacted quite a lot of lives and is steadily increasing its reach in India even in the midst of locking and unlocking. In this juncture, it is the elderly section of people who has become the most vulnerable of the attack. Beyond the threat to life, the endemic is putting the elderly who are above 65  at higher risk level as compared to other group, due to their decreased immunity coupled with  their multiple ailments.

Health experts and governments state that if the Covid-19 attacked the old-age people, the treatment will be complicated for them.  Therefore, they are recommended to stay indoors. They will have to stay home until the covid-19 departed from the world. However, the government of India in its newly economic package, has not mentioned any plan to safeguard the elderly people who are locked at home.

Due to the lockdown situation, in fact, most of the financially distressed elders feel loneliness as they have lost their independence, self-esteem and even dignity to some extent, as they have to depend upon others for their needs. Many have said they were suffering from depression, lack of sleep and appetite, and other associated ailments. As the COVID-19 cases continue to soar in India, and looking the plight of the old-age people, the physical and psycho-social health of them needs urgent attention by the Government.

Since the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government came to power in Kerala, there have been many developments taken place  for the sake of the old age people where one thing  catches more attraction  i.e - every senior citizen having  less than Rs 1 lakh  yearly income gets a pension of Rs.1300. The Finance minister Thomas Isaac has announced that the same amount will be increased to Rs.1500 by next year.

Currently, those who are above 75 years are getting Rs.1600 per month. If the India government tries to follow this method nationally, it will obviously be a blessing for the national old aged ones in their life.

What day is today, Friday or Monday?: A Lockdown Impact!

During this lockdown, I often ask to my wife, what is the day today?  Is it Monday or Tuesday? And she gets irritated with me for raising such a silly question. Have the lockdown days made me so forgetful about ordinary things?  On the one hand she looks at me quizzically but on the other hand, she herself asks even more silly questions to me like “What day is today, Friday or Monday? Or what is the date today, 10 or 20?” 

If you have been confusing what day or date it is, you are not alone.  In this lockdown, everybody’s mental clock is only partially functioning or not at all, as many are struggling with the pandemic.  The Covid-19 virus outbreak has rendered calendars somewhat obsolete. As India settles down into its more than 9th week in lockdown, it seems that many of us, particularly those who are working from home, are beginning to lose the track of time and try to go about with a semblance of normality.

For what reason does the lockdown befuddle our feeling of time?  During normal times, our calendar days or weekends and month-ends are dictated by our work.  That means, in our day to day schedule, what we eat, how we dress, when we go to sleep and when we wake up are totally dictated by our work. By routine, we get started with our work on a Monday and knowing that it would be wound up on a Saturday. But during this lockdown, certainly, many of these characteristics of our routine have been lost.

More than a third of the world's populace is now thought to be under some sort of lockdown in a bid to control the spread of the Covid-19 disease. This is especially true for those working-safely-from-homes and who would normally structure their days around their work and work-schedule.

To those experiencing difficulties remembering the date and the day, it is advisable that they organize their life with a little more discipline than other times. Try to wake up at the same time each day, even if you have no work.  Eat normal food  at a specific time and ensure adequate discipline throughout the day by scheduling time for other activities like meditation and physical exercise of one’s choice, not remaining sitting idle for prolonged periods of time.

What makes the Covid 19-times disorientating is that the physical atmosphere looks very normal but we have lost every social anchor that we would normally use.  Also, setting definite goals, and scheduling time to accomplish them besides our other obligations, can help us to structure our days and feel more productive. This will also provide a sense of achievement, something many of us have been probably lacking in these lockdown days! Monday to Friday and in the week-ends live consciously. Give a boost to your inner spirit!

This article published in Metro Varrtha on 31.5.2020

Corona Crisis and the Coronation of Our Lives!

P C  THOMAS

This Article was published in Metro Vaartha, Bhopal, Indore edition on 29.5.2020

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, every one of us faces difficult times in many aspects of life. The deadly corona virus has spread across the globe and made unprecedented health crisis, bringing along with it uncertainty about future, feeling of helplessness, panic, death and economic upheaval. The world has halted more than ever before and many radical changes have taken place in our lives. All these days of lockdown have made us realize how vulnerable we are and how dependent we are on simple things that we usually take for granted.

When we look around the street, we see no gathering of people. Public spaces are now seen with only by essential workers. The Businesses are ebbed, schools have moved to online platforms and the world has reduced in size equal to our homes and nobody knows when the end of the pandemic will come. 

We have seen that many people are suffering physically and mentally due to the fast spreading virus that has already taken so many lives. However, if we try to look forward to the brighter side of everything when we are in bad situations, something is going to change positively in our lives and good things are sure to happen. 

This one disease, COVID 19 can provide us with such wisdom beyond our comprehension revealing to us of how fragile, interconnected we are and how precious our life is…….It  offers a plethora of lessons on a personal, regional and planetary level showing the urgency to promote necessary transformations of our society to survive in the twenty first century.

We are nine-weeks into the massive time-out forced on us by covid19. Many of us have utilized much of that time trying to get used to the drastic change of living standard the virus has brought. But we are now starting to think about the last part of the crisis, and what the world will look like and what will be our attitude to life after this crisis.

The endemic has resulted in what is productively the largest safe-work-from-home experiment ever performed in human history. People are accessing more educational resources online for their children exploring unconventional ways to connect with colleagues, friends and family. 

As governments make significant interventions in response to the Covid crisis, businesses are promptly adjusting to the changing needs of their people, their clients and suppliers, while steering up the financial and functional challenges. With every industry, operation and logistics affected, the amount of prospective changes to think through can be daunting. 

This crisis also allows us to find additional meaning in our lives. Little things surprisingly become very important.  Also, helping out others, especially in our immediate community and the larger community of those in need, elevates our own mood. 

Although the Covid time affects our emotions, memories, feelings and perspectives, it should help us to transform our vision of life for better and to develop our character. A crisis like this teaches us lessons we would not learn when things are pleasant.

We are the sum of the experiences that we have gathered as we go through life. As human beings, when we encounter a challenge, we have the liberty to respond to it as we think right. Every decision that we make leads us down a different road.

We can also boost our resilience, which is our single best weapon for dealing with stress, by being grateful for things we do have, and not focusing on what we do not. Even if those difficult moments seem to break us, we have an incredible strength that can move us forward. Although there are many unforeseen transformations are brought into our lifestyle, we can use this time more effectively and the crisis can be changed into an opportunity to better the quality of our life!. Indeed an opportunity for private victories! Our personal coronations of life!

Let this lockdown not lock your spirit down

P C  THOMAS

The entire world is facing one of the greatest challenges the human history has ever faced through the spread of Corona virus. All over the world there are lockdowns. It is an unprecedented experience for many people during this lockdown period due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost everybody is passing through a critical juncture in their lives and finding it difficult to cope with the sudden change in their lifestyle. Staying safe at home, however, is most likely the best precaution we can take at the present time to defend ourselves from COVID-19 attack. 

As the virus battle rages, many people are finding Covid19 lockdown comfortable and work from home safely. If you are not one among them, you need to make this time productive rather than becoming idle or getting depressed sitting at home.  Even in the time of social distancing, one can still connect with  one’s neighbors and friends and offer support to those in need.

With the supply of daily necessaries shrinking up, this is a good time to reconsider what you should regard as your essential commodities. Try to become simple and content with what you have at your hand during this lockdown period. It is useful for the future too.

During this lockdown what a better way than reading books, brushing up one’s vocabulary to improve our language proficiency  and share your knowledge and reflections with your friends which will enhance your knowledge of people, society, history and culture. Think about yourself and reflect on your future goals, physical, mental and spiritual health, career aspirations and much more.

You can also unlock your artistic talents and aptitudes. Try your hand at drawing, painting, photography, writing songs, poems etc.  If you are interested in cooking, you can find great recipes online and can finally spend time cooking things never as before, even though you are under stringent budget. 

You can build your body in the lockdown.  Many yoga and fitness centers are offering online-classes at this time, which you can use profitably to improve your health, both physical and mental. It is the best time you can indulge in exercising and making certain that you keep yourself healthy and fit.  

If you want to experience mental and spiritual peace, put on some music and give meditation a try. Meditation will also help you reduce stress, boost energy, develop immunity system to combat the virus attack. Choosing any of these activities will give you peace of mind and enable you to do complete justice to your free time. You can also explore many other activities in line with your taste and aptitude.

You can get rid of smoking, alcoholic addiction etc., and keep yourself healthy and disciplined. During this time of crisis, it is important that you together with your family come closer to God by worshiping and praying to God Almighty. A few moments of supplications and spiritual thought can release you from your day long unpleasant pressure and give you peace and harmony within yourself and then you can pass such experience on to others. 

Let not this lockdown really locks your spirit down. Many possibilities are open to you and I have suggested some of them. A famous dictum says: Do it, do it now!