A sma wakes up very early in the morning to perform the household chores and then leaves her three-month-old twins at her mother’s place on her way to the bank.

She picks them on her way back in the evening and remains busy till late at night with countless tasks at home.

The ‘working mothers’ are considered as sharper, bold and more independent but have we ever thought why any mother would prefer to leave her small children for hours each day in order to earn a few bucks?

“I believe no woman goes outside her home willingly. There are social, financial and sometimes even cultural burdens which force us to seek an out-of-home employment,” she, a banker who has a full time 8-10-hours job, says.

“I can’t leave this job because it would be very difficult for my husband to support the whole family alone,” she said.

There are a lucky few with supportive families, while the rest are usually being targeted for, what their critics say, their irresponsible, out-going attitude without realising their real problems.

The reasons could be numberless, financial issues being at the top of them but in our social setup “working” mothers face this dilemma every day: Who will take care of my kids in my absence?

Many other women work because they feel it a waste of their precious, hard-earned degrees if not used practically.

Uzma, a university teacher brings her four-month-old daughter with her and leaves her at the campus nursery.

“I had initially left her with my mother-in-law at home at the end of my maternity leave, but soon realized that looking after the 90-day-old baby was very difficult for the grandma with frail health. I have now admitted her to the nursery and keep visiting her between the class intervals.”

Dr Saima also has long working hours. She had taken a 7-8 years career break when her kids were young.

“But now I have instructed their van driver to bring them to the hospital where they stay with me till my shift is over and then we go home together.”

Since the number of such mothers is increasing and the phenomenon of joint family system is diminishing from our society, there is a need of good daycare centres.

One such centre is ‘Motherhood’ in Rawalpindi which is the brainchild of Sadia Jamshed, who is lovingly called as “Aani” by ‘her’ children.

This nursery was opened a couple of years ago with a new vision. Sadia with the help of her extremely supportive husband and family wants to spread this help and support for other working mothers in these hard times.

The idea of establishing this kind of a centre had been nurturing in her mind since long when Sadia, a GCU graduate, had to leave her newly born children into her parents’ care in Lahore while she pursued her teaching career in Islamabad.

“There were hardly any such facilities at that time”, she recalls.

“Even when a few daycares were opened at a later stage, their condition was nothing but pathetic. I tried a few of those centers for my kids and to my horror, found out that they were forced to sit and sleep on bare floors, given cold and unhygienic food and sometimes even tranquilizers.

“Maids were untrained whose only concern was watching movie and dance channels instead of looking after the children for which they were charging thousands of rupees from the helpless mothers.”

This center had been opened with the aim of helping those mothers who had nobody to babysit for long hours while they were away. The slogan is: “Help the mothers and save the children”.

At the moment they are looking after children of lady doctors, female pilots, teachers and bankers.

Sadia and her staff are deeply involved all the time lifting the children’s spirits who are temporarily separated from their mothers.

She performs most of the tasks from changing to nursing the kids herself and never feels disgusted.

Although a few organisations are running daycare nurseries for their employees but they are on a small scale.

Female entrepreneurs should come forward and establish more such centres in order to spread help and support for others.

“Some legislation should also be done on the issue of maternity leave for the benefit of both the mothers and the children,” suggests Dr Javaria, a gynecologist.