“What if caregiving weren’t treated as a private problem—but a public design priority?” Every year, Mother’s Day floods our timelines with love, warmth, and nostalgia. But here’s a quieter truth: our cities aren’t built for mothers. Or their children.

Caregiving in Indian cities is an everyday negotiation—with broken footpaths, unsafe crossings, missing toilets, inaccessible transport, and workplaces that still assume care is someone else’s problem. Urban planning talks a big game about inclusivity, but the ground reality tells another story: cities exclude those who care.

The Everyday Obstacles of Care

Push a stroller outside your home and you’re met with broken pavements or none at all. Try crossing a busy road with a toddler, and you’re risking more than just inconvenience. Over 70% of urban roads in India lack usable footpaths, and in cities like Mumbai, the per capita open green space is just 1.2 sq m, far below the WHO recommendation of 9 sq m.

And it doesn’t stop there. There are barely any clean public toilets with baby-changing stations. No shade at bus stops. No seating for tired parents. Parks have shrunk. Roads have widened. Children and caregivers have disappeared from the urban imagination.

What Changed Between Then and Now?

Most of us grew up walking to school alone or playing outside without a second thought. But today, that freedom feels like a memory. I can’t imagine letting my 6-year-old walk 100 metres alone to the bus stop. He’s scared. I’m scared. Every day, we drop and pick him up. Not because we want to, but because the city gives us no choice.

When Poverty Meets Urban Neglect

For underprivileged mothers, the urban indifference is worse. With no cars or paid help, many bring their children to construction sites or leave them in unsafe surroundings. They navigate the city without safety nets—no creches, no childcare, no green spaces.

Often, they don’t even know cities can serve them better. Their struggles aren’t just ignored—they’re normalised.

The Workplace Isn’t Helping Either

Let’s be clear: the problem doesn’t end at the city’s edge. Workplaces are part of the same failing system.

The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 mandates that establishments with 50+ employees must provide creche facilities. But a 2020 ProEves report showed that 90% of eligible organisations don’t comply. Even when maternity leave is extended to 26 weeks, many employers view mothers as liabilities, offering token support while quietly stalling careers.

Inclusion without infrastructure is just good PR. For most mothers, the workplace offers little beyond polite words and subtle exits.

City and Office: Two Faces of the Same Problem

It’s tempting to treat cities and workplaces as separate issues. But for a mother, the daily commute, the creche drop, the toilet break, the client meeting—it’s all one system. If any part fails, the whole day fails.

If she can’t find a creche, walk safely with her child, nurse in peace, or take time off for an emergency, her autonomy is compromised, no matter how educated, skilled, or determined she is.

What a Mother-Centric City Looks Like

Imagine a city where footpaths are smooth, crossings are safe, and toilets have baby-changing facilities. Imagine clean parks within a 10-minute walk, creches at hospitals and offices, ramps on buses, priority boarding, and SOS buttons on streets.

It’s not a fantasy—it’s standard practice in cities like Vienna, Tokyo, Seoul, and even Dubai. They’ve redesigned spaces for women, children, and caregivers through participatory planning, gender-sensitive design, and tech-enabled infrastructure.

India doesn’t lack ideas. It lacks the political will to implement them.

What Needs to Change

Urban planning must stop treating care as invisible. Workplaces must stop making mothers feel guilty for existing. Governance must recognise that care work is city work, just unpaid and unrecognised.

Because if our cities don’t work for mothers, they don’t work at all.
And if our children are too scared to walk outside, it’s not them who need fixing. It’s the city.