Babies & "Meaningful Work": Why must they be separate?

Most women in the United States are only offered a paltry maternity leave. If you work for a company that employs more than 50 people, you are guaranteed a 12-week unpaid maternity leave and your employer must hold a space for you when you come back. Many families can't go three months without a paycheck, so many women are back at work by 6 weeks. At 6 weeks post-partum, I had just stopped bleeding, was barely getting the hang of breastfeeding and was a sleep-deprived zombie. At 12 weeks I was a breastfeeding pro and I was sleeping a little bit better but there was no way I was ready to go back to work and hand my baby off to someone else to take care of for 9 hours a day. Thankfully, I was able to take a 6-month leave, but that is atypical and still, it was very difficult to trust someone else to provide the level of care for my baby that I would.

But why does it have to be this way? Why is it assumed that babies only belong in certain places, and that women can't produce good work while caring for a child? It's not feasible for all women, but I'd wager most women could continue to care for their babies while earning a living and contributing to society. I believe that if a woman is practicing the principles of attachment parenting (breastfeeding, babywearing, being responsive to baby's cries, etc) that bringing her baby to work can well, work.

Here is a photo of Italian Parliament member Licia Ronzulli wearing her baby while participating in a voting session.

Here is a video of spoken word poet d'bi.young being interviewed about her work while breastfeeding her baby.



CEO of Palo Alto Software Sabrina Parsons brings her baby to work and nurses him during meetings and conference calls.

Viv Groskop, a British journalist, has never really stopped working. She simply takes her baby with her and nurses on the go. I was told by a concertgoer that Rihannon, the lead singer of the band Carolina Chocolate Drops brought her baby onstage and breastfed her during a concert in Virginia today. And yet, the world kept spinning and no one died, the work got done and everyone was happy.

But why should the option of bringing your baby to work only be available to artists, CEOs and the self-employed? Why can't more of us do our most important job, mothering, while completing the tasks that earn us a living? Why are there currently only a couple hundred companies offering employees the option to bring their babies to work?

It seems these programs benefit everyone. Mom and baby get to stay together, with no damage to their breastfeeding relationship.Companies are more likely to retain good employees, and moms are more likely to return after maternity leave.

Have you ever seen a woman caring for her child while working? Was she able to get her job done? Why don't we trust women to do this? And will it ever change?



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Sharing office space with your babe

My friend Mimi and I spend a lot of time talking about feminism, especially as it relates to libraries (our line of work). We find it really funny that people who work in libraries will try to start serious discussions about tech-sector benefits (like being able to bring your dog to work) before they will initiate a talk about flexible work hours, on-site daycare, paid maternity leave and other women and family-friendly policies.

When I saw this article I had to laugh because, although my co-workers oohh and aahh when I bring my son into the office to visit, I can't imagine any of them being supportive of me being allowed to bring him into the office. The article is from an Australian newspaper but is pulling information from a US study about the practice of bringing your baby to work.

So according to this article, a couple hundred companies in the US allow women to bring their babies to work and return to a flexible schedule. Of course this is very beneficial to new moms, and if we can't get paid leave or affordable, government-subsidized daycare, at least being able to bring your baby to work would allow women to continue to breastfeed. As a mom who pumps at work, lord knows I wish I could just latch my baby on instead. Pumping is time consuming, painful, tedious and stressful. I feel like I spend the majority of my day at work worrying about my pumping output, not my patrons or other projects.

Carla Moquin, who wrote the book, Babies at Work: Bringing New Life to the Workplace, says that most folks are rightly skeptical about how all of this works, but that once people try it, mom and baby get into a nice routine and everyone is supporting. Hhhmm. I call bullshit. Does anyone think co-workers, especially those who weren't able to take advantage of a similar program or who don't have kids, would actually be supportive of this type of thing? I've seen people mad enough to spit over women leaving work early to care for a sick child or attend a soccer game. Can you imagine their ire over a mom bringing her "spawn" into the office?

And which companies are offering these programs? I skimmed the list and surprise, surprise, almost none of them are places known as "women's work." So disheartening. I would love to believe that something like this could work (I'd be the first in line with my baby) but I just don't think we're there as a society. And if secretaries, teachers, nurses and librarians can't make use of the programs, what good is it? It's like when I read the list of the 100 most family-friendly companies that Working Mother magazine puts together and they're all in the fields of finance and computers and have a small percentage of women on staff.

Why is is that those of us in traditionally female fields don't fight harder for these benefits? Is it because we know we'd never get them? Is it because the boss tends to be a man?

Does anyone think this would fly at her job? I'm really fascinated by the whole scenario.