Working Parents: Are We Cheating?

It seems that the working-mommy versus stay-at-home-mommy debate is not the only debate raging with regard to working parents. Childless workers have a viewpoint, too, and it’s not one we can afford to ignore. And it’s not a new issue – here is a 1996 article talking about unequal distribution of benefits between working parents versus childless workers.

When I was childless, I never thought about whether or not working parents got any favoritism on the job. For one thing, they really didn’t. Flextime, telecommuting and being able to skip a meeting for your kid’s soccer game didn’t seem to be occurring much in the late nineties, at least not where I worked. I never got someone else’s work dumped on me, because I really didn’t work with anyone who had kids that closely. The people I worked with were like me, in their mid to late twenties, staying as late as they wanted and only cutting out early if they had a kickboxing class or were meeting someone for a drink after work. It just wasn’t part of my reality. When I did think about workplace flexibility for parents, I was happy about it, because at that point I had decided that I probably did want to do the parenting thing – I got engaged when I was twenty-six, and by then, I thought the guy I was marrying would probably become the father of my children.

The job I had when I got engaged didn’t have any maternity leave at all. The one person I knew who had a baby when I worked at that job brought her two-week-old newborn to work because she was breastfeeding and had no maternity leave. I remember walking into her office and seeing her there, typing away with one hand and shushing her baby while taking conference calls. I remember thinking that pretty much sucked, and that I would have to find a different job before I got knocked up.

When I had the little angel, I was self-employed and had no maternity leave. I saved up enough money to keep us afloat from my end while I was out struggling to recognize my new life. When I did go back to work, I was convinced that the next time around, if there was to be a next time around, I would be a full-time employee somewhere so that someone else could damn well worry about my benefits and salary while I was shoving my boob in a baby’s mouth. Suddenly benefits for working parents became very, very important to me.

At my current job, everyone seems to have the same degree of flexibility. I leave to go to the little angel’s doctor’s appointments, but my childless friends leave to let in the cable guy or close on their new house or do what they need to do. That’s my perception, anyway. They may feel differently. I do know that I’ve made decisions in my own career to have a job that doesn’t require a lot of travel or late nights that can’t be tapped out on my laptop at home. That’s my choice. Do I feel like my company would not promote me because of my daughter? No. Do I feel like my company would not promote me because I refuse to travel frequently or attend meetings at 7 p.m. on Wednesday? Yes. Am I upset about that? No. I have my boundaries, and that was my choice. Every choice comes with consequences.

The argument gaining popularity in the media today is not really my argument. (Check the comments section of this article – there is some excellent dialogue there.) Some childless people clearly feel they are being discriminated against, being asked to pick up the slack for working parents (and I don’t say “mommies” here, because today’s dads go to soccer games, too) when parents cut out early to attend to their children. If that’s happening, and I believe it is, even if I don’t see it happening at my own company, then that seems unfair. I think your personal choices should affect only you and your career, not other people’s. If childless people want to take on more, stay later and travel at whim, then they should be rewarded for that. If parents want to do the same, then they should also be rewarded for that at the workplace. They may suffer consequences from an angry spouse or child, but those are personal issues for them that they should take up in the privacy of their own homes. Some parenting couples have that worked out in a way that works for them. Some have one spouse secretly seething. Those are personal private issues that need to be worked out. But those shouldn’t be the concern of their childless coworkers.

I have childless friends of the I’m-childless-now-but-maybe-not-forever variety and of the childless-forever-by-choice variety. Most of mine seem to fall in the live-and-let-live camp expressed so eloquently here.

My sister Blondie and I recently started a blog answering questions from the childless and childful perspectives. She’s childless, and I have the little angel, and that colors the way we look at the world. As much as I would love to see the world clearly from her perspective, I just can’t anymore. My eyesight has been permanently changed. As much as I look at my career from own perspective, there is a very strong childless perspective in today’s working world that must not be ignored. Here is a link to a site discussing equality in benefit plans for childless workers who don’t want to foot the bill for those of us with children.

Just as I think we need to take a serious break from the vitriol over whether or not parents (and in particular, mommies) work, we also need to throw some water on the fire over benefits and time off at the office. I personally believe employers should look at their employees’ ability to get the damn job done. If you get the job done, what does it matter if you’re gone for an hour to take your diabetic dog to the vet or get your child’s immunizations or take your mother to a long lunch? Childless people shouldn’t have to take up the slack for us working parents, but they also should feel comfortable establishing their own boundaries without the premade excuses of children. Instead of attacking each other, we all need to look at work and how it balances with our personal lives. With laptops and Blackberries and cell phones, we’ve let work become our lives. Nobody should feel like that.

Everyone’s life is important.