The world continues to equate child-rearing with female labour. Even at the level of policy in developed countries, women are offered incentives such as job security to allow them to stay at home while fathers have no such benefits. So, overwhelmingly, when I go to spaces that are for child play, the person accompanying the child is the mother. Rarely is it the father. What it means is that for the two or three years until the child can either find a spot in day care or be admitted to kindergarten, women give up the chance of earning enough to put away for their pensions. I am part of two significantly massive Facebook groups for Indian mothers and every day I am exposed to posts that discuss how the bulk of child-caring responsibility is shouldered by women because fathers have to report to work, a symptom of India’s notably toxic work culture that doesn’t offer men the option of spending more time home.

This is how gender inequality continues to perpetuate. This is how we fail not only women but also men. It explains why the world ‘notices’ the labour of men who father, because it feels like an aberration. Some writer and academics in India from my parasocial network recently shared with me how horrible the support system in most metropolitan cities in India is, how it is rigged against women returning to the work force. The absence of good day-care facilities where children can be entrusted with specialists who are trained in child pedagogy and behaviour is appalling. At the level of state and national policy, it seems we would rather focus on building metros and SEZ zones and promoting real estate than focus on robust infrastructural systems to facilitate childcare that can then enable parents to live fuller lives.

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It isn’t a problem unique to India. Globally, we can see how our attentiveness towards children is an afterthought, even though the rhetoric may seem like we are centring them. The ongoing genocide in Gaza and the humungous toll on the lives of children is itself an indication of how we think some children are simply not deserving of life. The fact that in the US guns continue to be easily available even though so many children have died by gun violence is another indication. It feels redundant to say all children have the right to live. It is somehow so basic; you would think this should be one of the fundamental tenets that constitute our humanity. 

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.