Career women in India finding companionship with children
10 July 2010
Career women in India finding companionship with children
They are required to have the presence of a father figure for the child, plans for the future, and the ability to take up this enormous responsibility
- By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent
- Published: 00:00 July 10, 2010
- Reader comments (0)
- Actress Raveena Tandon (pictured at a school) adopted two girls a decade ago.
- Image Credit: IANS
Mumbai: Former Miss Universe and Bollywood actress Sushmita Sen may have been one of India's first well-known, single women to adopt a girl first in 1994.
Sen adopted another child, also a girl, this year.
Actress Raveena Tandon, too, had adopted two girls more than a decade ago.
Today, the trend of unmarried women adopting babies has become an accepted norm in Mumbai.
The Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare consultant Najma Goriawalla told Gulf News that society was now accepting of single mothers.
"And in a city like Mumbai which is liberal in outlook, single women have been coming to us to inquire about adoptions," Goriawalla said.
"These women are well-educated, well-informed, mostly in their 30s and 40s and hold very well-paying jobs.
"They are independent women who have decided not to get married or given up on marriage for want of finding a suitable partner.
"Yet, they don't want to miss out on the joys of motherhood."
Mumbai's Children of the World (India) Trust director Mani Mistry Elavia said this trend was not new since single women had been coming forward for the last 15-16 years.
She herself adopted an eight-month-old baby girl who was now 15, full of life and with a mind of her own.
"Four of my friends, too, adopted babies years back," she told Gulf News.
Apart from motherly instincts, women also found companionship with adopted children, she said.
It was a tough decision to be single and adopt a child, and the going could be even tougher, adoption experts have said.
Adoption applicants must undergo thorough scrutiny of their background and their financial capacity to bring up a child.
Single female adoptees were also required to have the presence of a father figure for the child in a relative or friend, plans for the future, and the ability to take up this enormous responsibility. All agencies stressed the importance of the support of family and friends for the woman.
Who looked after the child if the mother was unwell was also a commonly asked question for potential adoptees.
Mistry said her mother had been a strong supporter.
Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption's Savita Nagpurkar said: "Socio-economic factors are not the only criterion".
"The emotional aspects — that of a keen desire to be a parent — eventually takes centre-stage."
Undoubtedly, the challenge of being a single parent is formidable — to manage a child, career, personal life and the pressure that comes with it.
"But if she has the courage of conviction and confidence, she would certainly do a good job of bringing up a child like any other parent," Goriawalla said.
Social worker Harsha Sheth from Bal Anand, an adoption agency in an eastern suburb, said: "We do get a stream of inquiries from single women wanting to adopt".
"Yet we have found that many give up since they cannot handle the vast paper work."
Despite the interest shown by single women, staff at Bal Anand, like those at many adoption agencies, said they strongly believed a child needed a father and mother to have a complete family life.
"We do not discourage single women but at the same time we prefer couples," Sheth said.
Mistry, too, said that her daughter, at the age of four, said she wanted a father.
"One day, she asked me if marriages in this world were over. She wanted to know if she would ever have a father," Mistry said.
Mistry married when her child was five.
What is your reaction to the growing trend of single women adopting children? Is this an indicator that women finally have an equal status in society? Or is it threatening the balance within families?