When Mathew Chandy and his team sat down a couple of months ago to brainstorm over what would be the perfect gift for moms on Mother’s Day, finding a way to get them a good night’s sleep and an energetic day came up as the top choice. As a company, which makes and sells mattresses, providing moms with the most comfortable mattresses wasn’t a challenge, but what if moms weren’t getting enough time to sleep, to begin with? Mothers are sleep-deprived and tired, because they often hold the family together single-handedly.
Thus began the Equal Parenting campaign. Driven by a petition asking the Government of India to pass a law mandating compulsory two months of paid paternity leave to all new fathers, the campaign sought to spark a discourse on the responsibility of fathers towards children. Articles were written on why fathers need to pitch in more towards parenting, and conversations were started on social media on enabling men to be able to do so.
“We feel that if new fathers were around more to help during the day, and more importantly during the night, that could be a big step towards energising moms,” says Mathew Chandy, MD of Bengaluru-based Duroflex Mattresses.
The response of the campaign was overwhelming. Tens of thousands of people wrote in, agreeing with the demand and signing the petition. Men and women came together to accept that the first step to getting men to share the load of parenting is systemically enabling them to do so.
Nevertheless, why stop with just the campaign? Shouldn’t the company walk the talk? And they did.
“Today, we are happy to do something that very few organisations in India have done. We are giving all new dads at Duroflex one month paid paternity leave. After we settle into this brave new world, we would like to extend this to 2 months,” says Mathew Chandy. From today, every new father at the company will receive one month paid paternity leave, so that they can also equally share the responsibility of parenting early in the child’s life.
The company says that they are confident that this decision will increase the happiness quotient of their employees. “This is a well-thought-out decision which involved productivity analysis and its impact,” Mathew Chandy says, adding that earlier even fathers who wanted to help and spend more time with their family, couldn’t do it because they were tied up with job commitments.
Very few organisations in India have taken this crucial step towards Equal Parenting, “We urge other organisations to join us in championing equal parenting,” says Mathew Chandy.
If you are in a decision-making position at an organisation, perhaps it’s time you take a step ahead too?
Happy Father’s Day!
This article has been produced by TNM Marquee in association with Duroflex for the #EnergiseMom campaign.