It is absolute nonsense to talk about work life balance at an adult stage. My grandmother used to tell me "if you cannot change at 5, you cannot change at 50" This may be an old saying but a very good analogy to our discussion. See, right from our childhood days we mix up both personal and professional life. What I call professional life during childhood is our schooling. Our kids are given homework from the very first step they enter into school. They become so used to homework that they do not realize the problem until they work from home during their corporate life.

No wonder in today's work place there are so much of gossips and personal informations shared among employees and on the other hand homemakers know every information including strategic decission's made at work place just by being at home. Where did all this practice come from? It is not a rocket science to understand this. A child brings work home and takes home to work from the age of 5 until he/she completes his/her Post Graduation. But all of a sudden, out of the blue they are asked not to do so when they enter the corporate world. Though so much of time and effort is spent by employee relation professonals on this, a definite answer is yet to be found. This is because we are still treating the symptom and not the root cause.

Here is my solution. It may be a shock to the education community but even the earth was once believed flat. DO NOT SEND WORK HOME FOR STUDENTS IN THE NAME OF HOMEWORK. A Kid should be a student at school and a child at home. Though both parents and teachers are responsible for a kids future their role should be more well defined. Though teachers do not take the role of parents many parents take the role of teachers at home. This is only due to HOMEWORK. I am not blaming the system, if this is the culture and the core value that we share in our system, we should not blame employees when they enter the corporate world that they bring personal problems to work and take work home. It is quiet difficult to change a practice what was learnt over 20 years.

People may think that I am talking nonsense here, but I strongly believe that this is the truth. Education system should be so designed that Schools should stop sending HOMEWORK (Work from home). By doing so the system will provide quality time to parents for good parenting. Though parents are first teachers, they have life subjects to teach their children. It is from parents a kid learns how to respect elders, the importance of a family, how to solve family problems, how to manage family budget, how to adjust and accomodate brothers and sisters, how to save money, how to help one another and many such important life science subjects.

If my assumption is right and if the education system stop sending homework for kids this year, in 17 years (kids complete Post Graduation) we can see a very healthy work force and The best citizens in this world as they would have got quality education from school and all the love, affection and good life education from good parenting. This way both teachers and parents would have done 100% justice to their role.

Joy Leo