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Work-Life Balance is impossible in Today’s Times BY MONA MEHRA

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Work-Life Balance is impossible in Today’s Times.
I talk about Home a lot as it is a significant part of our lives. In work life balance, Home is important and each one of us juggle career, home, spirituality, health, hobbies etc. Families require a lot of our time and that time element is equal with each one of us.
It took me months to make this illustration.
Look at this illustration and you would see that Home is the center of our living. We might be anywhere doing anything but we eventually return Home.
We all start as children and in the age group of 0-5 years, the maximum brain development happens and all the research point to that. The development of a child in that age group happens mostly in a Home. In India, there is concept of pre-school or play school and in some countries there is none and school starts at 6+ years. So around 3.5 in India and in some countries 6+ years the child starts formal school with nursery. Here the child life revolves around Home and School. It is here there is maximum work is involved which takes 18-20 hours as the child is completely dependent on caretaker and is learning and imbibing everything by watching what the caretaker is saying and doing. This involves loads of unpaid work as a mother / father is doing it.
In the age group beyond that from 6 to 18 the child finishes school and is completing education. Here also the time of the child is in Home and school. This involves load of unpaid work. No paid work here.
Some young adults might do their college and some post-graduation. The age of study depends on an individual which in some cases go to 25+ (age depends on individual). Here also a lot of time is involved in a Home. NO Paid work here.
Now after education, when young adults enter workforce, we call that as paid work. This means paid work starts from 22 years of the life of an individual to retirement age of 60+ years. Spending 8-10 hours here and the remaining is 12-14 hours in a Home or doing something else which can be hobby/ friends/ extracurricular/ health etc. This small but essential part of life which is 30- 50% (vary with individual) is called as WORK.
But the problem is that this work which is Paid work is only referred to as WORK. This does not include unpaid work as that is what we do ourselves and is free. In the Lifecycle of Work, it is unpaid work which comes first. This is what has made us adult, nurtured us and we are going to do the same for the new generation. One does not work without other.
We accept only paid work as work and that is why I say that work life balance is impossible in current times.

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