It has been too long that fa­thers are ex­pect­ed to be in the de­liv­ery room and then show up to work the next day as if noth­ing hap­pened. It has al­so been too long that preg­nant women are side­lined at work or de­nied pro­mo­tions be­cause em­ploy­ers feel “they won’t have time to fo­cus on the job be­cause they have chil­dren.” Many women, es­pe­cial­ly those in top lead­er­ship po­si­tions, are made to feel like they have to choose work over chil­dren, that they can­not have both.

That is why the pro­posed amend­ment to the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act should be seen as a win for Trinidad and To­ba­go and one more step to­wards progress. The ex­pan­sion re­flects the needs of mod­ern fam­i­lies, es­pe­cial­ly pa­ter­ni­ty leave, recog­nis­ing adop­tive par­ents and breast­feed­ing breaks. These changes em­pha­sise that we can­not con­tin­ue to treat fam­i­ly life and work life as if they are com­plete­ly sep­a­rate things.

In her an­nounce­ment about the changes, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so en­cour­aged women to be­come moth­ers. She stat­ed, “To all young women who are now find­ing your paths through adult­hood, based on my own ex­pe­ri­ences, I urge you to con­sid­er the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come a moth­er. One of the most beau­ti­ful feel­ings in life is the hap­pi­ness and joy you ex­pe­ri­ence when you re­turn to a home of hap­py chil­dren.” I un­der­stand that the Prime Min­is­ter, a high­ly suc­cess­ful and ac­com­plished woman who has bal­anced lead­er­ship and a fam­i­ly life her­self, is try­ing to as­sure women that they can pur­sue both.

How­ev­er, I feel that the truth about par­ent­ing in T&T is far more com­plex. Ad­e­quate ma­ter­ni­ty and pa­ter­ni­ty leave is on­ly one as­pect of what makes par­ent­ing pos­si­ble. Be­fore we en­cour­age more women to have chil­dren, we have to look hon­est­ly at where we are as a so­ci­ety. The high cas­es of ne­glect, aban­don­ment and abuse of chil­dren should force us to ask, are our adults tru­ly equipped and sup­port­ed to raise chil­dren in ways that pro­duce healthy, hap­py and bal­anced chil­dren? It ap­pears to be the norm now for chil­dren to be left in the care of grand­par­ents and to use phones and tablets to “babysit” chil­dren. Is this not child aban­don­ment?

I think about some of the par­ents you see out in pub­lic spaces who have no con­trol over chil­dren as young as two and three years old. In fact, some­times it ap­pears that the chil­dren are con­trol­ling the par­ents; they just have to scream and cry, and par­ents give in to them. There are par­ents who bare­ly en­gage with their chil­dren and pass off their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to oth­ers–grand­par­ents, aunts and un­cles, old­er sib­lings and teach­ers.

Na­tion­al sur­vey da­ta from the 2022 Mul­ti­ple In­di­ca­tor Clus­ter Sur­vey (MICS) re­ports that 35 per cent of chil­dren aged ze­ro to 17 years live with their moth­er on­ly, while just over half live with both bi­o­log­i­cal par­ents, and six per cent live with nei­ther bi­o­log­i­cal par­ent.

I al­so think about all those women who do not want chil­dren. Yes, that is a re­al thing. Not all women be­lieve that they will on­ly feel com­plete when they have a child. Many are ful­filled spend­ing time with nieces and nephews and then pass­ing them back to their par­ents at the end of the day. Not all women feel fi­nan­cial­ly sta­ble and pre­pared to bring chil­dren in­to this world. Rais­ing chil­dren is ex­pen­sive–ed­u­ca­tion, health, child­care and ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties are on­ly some of the things par­ents need to be pre­pared for. And let’s not for­get those women who can­not have chil­dren due to med­ical rea­sons. I feel for the women who try again and again but can­not con­ceive or suf­fer mis­car­riages.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so made the point that life with­out fam­i­ly and chil­dren can feel lone­ly as we get old­er. Sad­ly, this is a re­al fear and a re­al ex­pe­ri­ence for many. How­ev­er, there are many el­der­ly peo­ple who are lone­ly and live in iso­la­tion de­spite the fact that they have chil­dren. The con­cept of chil­dren tak­ing care of el­der­ly par­ents is quick­ly be­com­ing a thing from the ‘good ole days.’ The same chil­dren they sac­ri­ficed every­thing for grew up to be busy adults who do not have time to check in on el­der­ly par­ents.

‘Mod­ern’ cul­ture made sure that putting el­der­ly par­ents in old-age homes is not some­thing that is frowned up­on. In­stead, it is seen as a ne­ces­si­ty, as chil­dren have “their lives to live.” In many cas­es chil­dren mi­grate and leave el­der­ly par­ents to fend for them­selves.

If we want to en­cour­age moth­er­hood and par­ent­hood, then we need to make child pro­tec­tion ef­fec­tive and make child­care af­ford­able. We have to make fa­thers ac­count­able. We have to sup­port fam­i­lies rais­ing chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties. We have to strength­en pro­tec­tions for oth­er peo­ple and make age­ing dig­ni­fied. Ex­pand­ing ma­ter­ni­ty and pa­ter­ni­ty leave is a good start. Now let us build the child­care, pro­tec­tions and sup­port sys­tems that make fam­i­ly life pos­si­ble af­ter the leave ends. A tru­ly fam­i­ly-friend­ly na­tion is mea­sured by what par­ents and chil­dren, moth­ers and fa­thers, ex­pe­ri­ence every or­di­nary day.