A Gurgaon couple has opened up about the financial and emotional pressure faced by young working parents in metro cities, saying that raising a child full time is increasingly becoming a luxury for many urban households built around two incomes.
Speaking with HT.com, 30 year old Ayan Chakravarty, a management consultant based in Gurgaon, said the arrival of his six month old daughter changed the way he and his wife, Munmun Mukherjee, looked at their finances, careers and daily lives.
Ayan, who is originally from Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, said his professional journey began in a very different environment. “In Gurgaon I work as a management consultant. I started my career as a Graduate Trainee in the blast furnace department of a steel company in Kharagpur — night shifts, six day weeks, very operational and physical work. That was my first job after engineering. Over the years I did my MBA and moved into consulting, and today my work involves a fair bit of international travel. It’s been a gradual transition over about 6-7 years.”
From modest salaries to metro life
Ayan said both he and Munmun began their careers with modest salaries before moving to Gurgaon for better professional opportunities. Munmun, a supply chain management professional, is currently on extended maternity leave as she prepares to return to work.
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“My wife is Munmun Mukherjee. She’s a supply chain management professional with about 6-7 years of experience. She started her career as a procurement executive in Jamshedpur and has grown steadily in her field since. Right now she’s on an extended maternity leave — she’s using the extra time to train our nanny before heading back to work,” he said.
The couple, who have been married for a little over three years, both come from Jamshedpur, where their families still live. “We’re both from Jamshedpur, Jharkhand — that’s home for both of us and where our families still are. I’m an engineer with an MBA. Munmun has done her B.Com and then her Masters in Commerce. We both studied and built our early careers in Jamshedpur before eventually moving to Gurgaon,” Ayan said.
Looking back at their early careers, he said their earnings were far lower when they started. “We’ve each been working for around 6-7 years now. My first job was in a steel company — blast furnace department, shift work including nights, very demanding physically. Munmun started as a procurement executive at a service company, also in Jamshedpur, also six days a week. Both of us were earning quite modest salaries at that point — I was under ₹40,000 a month and she was under ₹25,000. Over the years we both grew professionally, moved cities, took on more responsibility. Gurgaon was the next chapter for both of us.”
Marriage changed their financial outlook
Ayan said marriage made them more conscious of money and long term planning. “We’ve been married a little over three years. When you get married you start thinking about money differently — it’s no longer just your own expenses, you’re planning together. We started thinking about where we wanted to live, what we were saving toward, what kind of future we were building. It also made us more aware of how much our lifestyle was quietly expanding as our incomes grew. You don’t always notice it when it’s just you, but when you’re planning as a couple it becomes more visible.”
He said their income grew significantly over the years, but so did the cost of the life they were building in Gurgaon. “When you go from earning ₹25-40k individually to a combined income in the range of ₹2.5-3 lakhs a month, it’s a significant change. But the lifestyle adjusts alongside the income — the city you live in, the rent you pay, the kind of life you’re running. By the time our daughter arrived, our monthly costs had grown considerably from what they were in the early years. The income had grown but so had everything else around it.”
When two salaries became a necessity
The realisation that their life was structured around two incomes came only after their daughter was born, Ayan said.
“When we actually sat down and did the math after our daughter was born. Until then it was more of an assumption in the background — of course both of us would keep working, of course we’d manage. It was only when we started looking at what our monthly expenses actually were, and then imagining one salary covering all of it, that it became very real. Gurgaon is an expensive city and we’d built our life here on two salaries without consciously framing it that way.”
Explaining why he believes raising a child full time has become a luxury for many urban couples, Ayan said the issue is not irresponsible spending, but the cost structure of metro life.
“Raising your child by yourself, full-time, is a very big luxury. I mean that for most urban couples today, one parent staying home full time to raise a child would require genuinely restructuring their financial life. Not because they’re being extravagant, but because rent, EMIs, basic city living costs — all of it was built assuming two incomes. For us, if Munmun stopped working, we’d have to make real changes to how we live. And we’re a household that by most measures is doing reasonably okay. I imagine it’s significantly harder for couples earning less than us. The option to have a parent home full time just isn’t available to most families in cities like Gurgaon without real sacrifice.”
Parenthood brought love, anxiety and new expenses
Ayan said becoming parents changed their lives emotionally, financially and practically. “Emotionally it’s hard to describe — there’s a kind of love and also a kind of anxiety that comes together. You feel responsible in a way you haven’t before.”
He said the regular expenses after childbirth were more surprising than the big planned ones. “Financially, the expenses that caught us off guard weren’t the big planned ones. It was the ongoing costs — formula, diapers, medicines, vaccines, baby consumables. They add up every month. And then finding and paying for good childcare, which turned out to be both expensive and very difficult to find.”
Their daily routine now revolves completely around their daughter. “Our daughter is six months old. The daily routine is entirely around her now — her feeding times, her sleep schedule, her needs come first. Both of us are more tired than we expected to be, and we have less time for anything outside of work and her. It’s an adjustment but it’s also just the reality of this phase.”
Childcare became the biggest challenge
Ayan said Munmun’s return to work was delayed because they struggled to find reliable childcare in Gurgaon.
“The first and most practical reason was that we couldn’t find reliable, quality childcare for a long time. Finding a trained nanny who you actually trust with a six month old is genuinely hard in a city where you don’t have an established network. Beyond the practical part, there’s the emotional reality of leaving a very young baby — who is completely dependent on you — in someone else’s care for 10-12 hours a day. Munmun has taken an extra month beyond her maternity leave to spend time training our nanny, just so there’s a proper transition before she goes back. It was a combination of all of these things together.”
Asked whether the challenge was emotional, practical or financial, he said, “All three, honestly. The practical challenge of finding good childcare, the emotional difficulty of leaving the baby, and the financial pressure of needing to return to work because one income alone would require us to significantly change our lives. None of these exist in isolation — they all feed into each other.”
The couple eventually found a nanny only recently. “Very difficult. We spent a significant amount of time looking for someone suitable and couldn’t find anyone we felt comfortable with for a long time. There was a period where we seriously discussed whether one of us should just stop working because we couldn’t solve the childcare problem. We eventually found someone about two weeks ago. Munmun is currently using her extended leave to train her. But the search itself was stressful and long.”
Speaking about Gurgaon specifically, he said rent, childcare and household expenses make parenting financially demanding. “Rent is significant — a decent apartment in a safe area isn’t cheap. Childcare costs — a good nanny or daycare can be anywhere from ₹15,000 to ₹30,000 or more per month. Then regular household expenses, commute costs, and the general cost of living in a metro. Baby-specific expenses are a separate ongoing category on top of all of that. When you add it up, what seems like a comfortable combined income starts feeling a lot tighter.”
The difficult question of a career break
Ayan said the couple did seriously discuss whether one of them should take a career break. “Yes, we did — when we were going through a long stretch of not being able to find suitable childcare. We sat down and looked at what our finances would look like on one income, what we’d have to change, whose career was at what stage. It was a difficult conversation because there’s no easy answer. We haven’t fully closed that conversation even now. The guilt of being away from your daughter for 10-12 hours a day doesn’t really go away just because you’ve logically worked out that it’s necessary.”
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He said the biggest concern about moving to one income was not immediate survival, but the impact on savings, plans and career growth. “The fixed costs don’t change — rent, EMI, basic expenses. Those continue regardless. The concern was less about immediate survival and more about what it would mean for our savings, our financial plans, the trajectory we’d been on. And there’s also the career dimension — a break has professional consequences, and those are real even if they’re hard to quantify in the moment.”
Sharing their approximate finances, he said, “We both started quite modestly — I was earning under ₹40,000 and Munmun under ₹25,000 when we started out, both working six day weeks. Today our combined household income is in the range of ₹2.5 to 3 lakhs a month. Before the baby, that felt comfortable and we were saving reasonably well. After — between rent, nanny, baby consumables, formula, diapers, medicines, vaccines and general household costs in Gurgaon — the monthly surplus is noticeably smaller. The income grew over the years but so did our cost of living, and the baby added a new layer of fixed expenses on top.”
Why many couples remain silent
Ayan said many couples face similar pressures but do not discuss them openly. “I think a lot of couples are going through exactly this and not talking about it openly. Part of it is that it feels like a personal problem rather than a common one — you assume everyone else has figured it out. Part of it is also that this particular financial pressure sits in a bracket that doesn’t get much attention. You’re not in visible financial distress, but you’re also not comfortable enough to feel secure. The response to my video suggested that a lot of people recognized themselves in it immediately, which told me the silence was never because people weren’t feeling it.”
He added that workplaces need to be more supportive of mothers returning after maternity leave. “I think so, yes. The specific things that would actually help are flexibility and continuity — a mother coming back after maternity leave shouldn’t find that her standing, her projects or her professional momentum have quietly shifted in her absence. Munmun taking an extra month to train our nanny is a decision we made for our daughter’s wellbeing. Ideally that kind of decision shouldn’t carry any professional cost. Whether it does or doesn’t often depends less on official policy and more on the immediate work culture and the manager she returns to.”
For other couples feeling anxious about the same phase of life, Ayan said the pressure is real and cannot always be solved through budgeting alone.
“That it’s genuinely hard and the anxiety makes sense. This isn’t a problem you can fully solve with better planning or smarter budgeting — the costs are real and the emotional weight of it is real. What helped us was being honest with each other about what we were actually feeling rather than just managing logistics. And accepting that there isn’t a perfect arrangement — you make the best decision you can with what you have, and you adjust as you go. We’re very much still figuring it out ourselves.”
