Someone who sits by the child to watch her sleep, who feeds her on time, who is the first to be at her side when she cries. Yes, here’s a father who has taken time off from his profession to do just that. Ahead of Fathers’ Day, Naveen Krishnan talks about his experience.
When Naveen Krishnan, a software professional based in Canada, decided to move to India so that his two children could spend more time with their grand parents, he had decided that he would take time off from work.
“My wife and I had a long chat about it, and since she started working from home about a year and a half ago, we felt that one of us should be around more.”
Naveen also shared that he chose to do so as he felt that he might have missed out on some moments of his 9-year-old son Rohan’s childhood. “When he was born, my wife stayed at home to take care of him and she got to see all the little things about being a parent. I wanted to do the same for our daughter. This way, I also get to spend more time with my son now.”
He enjoys taking his son around the city. “He has adjusted so well to the social atmosphere here. We go to the planetarium almost every other week - I’ve realised that children are interested in so many things that we assume they won’t be.”
Naveen is amazed how Ragini, who loves looking through books even though she can’t read yet, finds out if he skips a page while he’s reading to her. “Sometimes she’s not even looking at the book, but she knows what happens on which page.”
Ask him about the moments that he cherishes the most with his daughter, he promptly replies, “Everything,” and further adds, “From giving her a bath to feeding her, being there when she wakes up or watching her sleep, observing her different reactions without being pressed for time. Yes, it can be very tiring, but in the end, you feel that it’s totally worth it. In fact, that’s the best part of being a stay-at-home dad for me. I don’t have to feel rushed when I’m doing any of these things.”
Three-year-old Ragini has just begun to go to playschool a week ago and Naveen feels that the house has a different feel to it now. “We have to get her up by eight in the morning, and we miss her running around and her chatter, but we also get to spend some time with each other.”
With his daughter having reached the playschool age, Naveen has also begun to think of ‘slowly getting back into the job market — perhaps with a job similar to my wife’s’ who is an IT professional too. “Not anything hectic that requires a lot of travel,” he declares.
“I know that such opportunities take time to come by and may not be highly remunerative,” he allows, but he says that family time is far more rewarding. “I know my priorities clearly now. Taking this break has given me a whole new perspective.”