What Millennial Women Think About Motherhood 

Why should women have to choose between a successful career and a fulfilling family life? That seems to be the question millennial women are asking today.

Successful business leaders like Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg have highlighted this disparity when questioning the status quo that favours men in corporate culture the world over.

In her book, Lean In, Sandberg says, “For many men, the fundamental assumption is that they can have both a successful professional life and a fulfilling personal life. For many women, the assumption is that trying to do both is difficult at best and impossible at worst.”

BloombergQuint spoke to a diverse set of women ahead of Mother's Day celebrations in India to get their take on the ideal balance between career and raising children, and whether societal pressure plays a part in determining if and when a woman marries.

A college graduate BloombergQuint spoke to said, “Social realities and pressures differ everywhere. I come from urban India and I don't have that kind of social pressure.” Work and starting a family should not be thought of as binary decisions, she said.

Her friend, a college student, agreed. “Your job and family are two separate things. And the decisions you take for each of them are not connected. They shouldn't be. It is not necessary for you to have just one.”

There is a growing discourse on equal sharing of responsibilities at home. In ‘Lean In', Sandberg points out that women should encourage their partners to participate more in the responsibilities associated with running a household and raising children instead of being “maternal gatekeepers”.

Speaking to BloombergQuint, Amita, a lecturer at Vivekanand College in Ahmedabad, concurred. “I firmly believe that husband and wife must share responsibilities equally. In fact, my husband and I had an arrangement wherein we took turns to prepare meals,” she said.