Uganda women in Parliament must lead policy reform on parenting

As Uganda approaches the 2026 general elections, the achievements of women in parliament offers powerful and inspirational progress now more than ever.

Their increased presence at the policy table is reshaping national debates from education and health to economic inclusion. But a critical issue still lies at the heart of every home and school: “who is raising our children, and under what environment?”

According to Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, a child’s development is influenced by multiple layers of environment beginning with the microsystem (home), and expanding to institutions like schools, workplaces, and national policies (ecosystem and macrosystem).

Therefore, when parents are absent due to systemic pressures, children miss out on the foundational care, values, and identity-building they need. Many working mothers, especially in urban areas, now face a delicate balancing act of professional expectations with parenting.

Office demands leave parents exhausted, detached, and unable to meaningfully engage with their children. As a coping mechanism, some parents now enroll their children in boarding schools as early as kindergarten, while others rely heavily on domestic helpers to raise children.

The dilemma of many working mothers is the worry of the kind of behavior the helper is likely to impart in the little ones. Young children spend their formative years away from the nurturing presence of their parents.

This comes with serious social consequences. They grow up learning more from strangers and screens than from their own mothers and fathers. Discipline, values, language, culture even love are no longer being passed down at home.

In essence, we are raising a generation through delegation not connection. This is not a failure of women; it is a failure of policy and systems to adapt to modern gender roles. Prof. Sylvia Tamale, a Ugandan scholar and gender rights advocate, reminds us that “empowered women must not be forced to choose between professional success and raising children.”

Sociologist Arlie Hochschild, in her book The Second Shift, highlights how women across the world carry the burden of both employment and domestic responsibility often without support from systems or policy.

The reality in Uganda reflects this imbalance. Most work environments still expect women to perform like men – reporting early, staying late, and traveling frequently with no consideration of their dual roles as mothers and nurturers. In many workplaces, including some of those that are government-led, little or no provision is made for child-friendly spaces, flexible schedules, or parental leave for fathers.

This is where female MPs can step up, not just as political leaders, but as change agents for a more supportive society. Uganda is not alone in grappling with work-family challenges but we are far behind in addressing them structurally.

Several countries offer strong policy benchmarks for our MPs to learn. Sweden allows parents to share 480 days of paid leave, promotes flexible working hours, and provides government-run daycares, just to mention a few.

Rwanda, closer to home, mandates on-site childcare centers in government institutions, while promoting shared parenting roles through national family policies. Germany supports reduced working hours for mothers, and discourages early separation of children from their parents.

It should be a national issue when a parent is absent not because of negligence, but due to structural barriers like inflexible jobs. This is why leadership, especially by women in Parliament, must not stop at gender representation.

It must extend into shaping environments that protect the parent-child bond and the family institution at large. Ugandan MPs should advocate for family-friendly labour reforms, including flexible hours for parents of young children.

Push for community-based daycare centres in public and private workplaces. Discourage early boarding for children below upper primary unless in special circumstances. Promote shared parenting policies so that men, too, are engaged and supported in child upbringing.

Let us not try to push women to choose between family and public service but instead redesign how work and parenting can complement each other. Men in leadership are also encouraged to join this campaign but with women in the lead.

For it is often the mother who feels the first pull of absence, and it is through her leadership that compassionate, inclusive policies will take root. Let the year 2026 be one for reform for homes reconnected, children guided, and a generation raised not by accident, but by intention.

The writer is a mother.