{"id":200,"date":"2008-07-13T09:49:25","date_gmt":"2008-07-13T13:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washwords.wordpress.com\/?p=187"},"modified":"2008-07-24T02:12:16","modified_gmt":"2008-07-24T02:12:16","slug":"mommy-tracked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/2008\/mommy-tracked\/","title":{"rendered":"“Mommy-tracked” or does work\/life=life?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mommy-track post, or as Maggie Dammit <\/a>would say, the post in which I lose several readers (in a fiery rage? she didn’t say that part). Anywho, back to my point, which was… am I evil for resenting a “New Parent Community of Practice” recently (heh) spawned at work? Don’t answer yet. Let me explain.<\/p>\n

I. Let’s say one works at a federal government agency. Let’s say said anonymous Place of Employment<\/strong> offers flextime, telecommuting, maternity leave, paternity l\"\"<\/a>eave, on-site (good) day care, part-time schedules, family-friendly sick leave, use of sick leave and annual leave towards extended maternity\/paternity leave, etc.<\/p>\n

Photo by N. Farnsworth as printed on Flickr.<\/a><\/p>\n

II. Let’s further say Place of Employment<\/strong> is a place where work is analytical and done in teams in a hierarchical structure. No people = no work; fewer people = less work; fewer people with advanced skills… well, you get the idea.<\/p>\n

III. Let’s further say some new parents have seen fit to bring children to work. multiple days. during meetings. work meetings. work meetings when the team is in trouble. work meetings where everyone says “how cute” when we’re asked to “watch him for a minute.” everyone but me.<\/p>\n

IV. Let the evidence further reflect that I loooooveeee babies, love kids, especially this one<\/a> but all of them, really (well not the screaming ones that come with bad parents, but most), think parenting is a wonderful, valiant, worthy in all the very best ways, contribution to life, society, and the world at large.<\/p>\n

Similarly, I like moms. Not just my sister, other ones, too. I value the parenting work they do and I value them outside of mommy-world. I have many, many, MANY work colleagues who are parents and do a tremendous job at work, working as hard if not harder than anyone and with top results. (Shockingly, these aren’t really the moms in item 6).<\/p>\n

V. Be it known that at our Place of Employment<\/strong> are folks of all kinds dealing with work \/ <\/span>life challenges, including but not limited to parenting, single parenting, caring for aging parents, caring for disabled children, fertility problems, severe and\/or terminal illness, divorce, bad breakups, limited finances, addictions, depression, disabilities, etc. Some do so “better,” some “worse” but all are doing it on some level with their own challenges.<\/p>\n

VI. Let it be further known, that our workplace has a union, an active hard-fought union, to further advocate on behalf of any individual or group who is aggrieved or feels a term or condition of work has been changed, is unjust etc.<\/p>\n

VII. Given then points I -VI, am I completely, completely evil, to resent the new “New Parent” Community of Practice,” (CoP)set up to “help new parents and managers navigate work\/life balance”? <\/strong><\/p>\n

What’s a CoP? Well typically they at my workplace, they are reserved for a set of people working on a specific work issue to develop best practices, “providing a forum for practitioners of a discipline to interact and share knowledge and experiences pertinent to their tasks at hand and to solve business problems.” Business. Problems. Do we have a COP for every substantive team at my workplace? Nope? Every career path, including some often devalued, like say, writing? Not till recently; some, still not at all. My point being that in my workworld a community of practice isn’t a club or social group – it’s a big deal -designed to facilititate managers and non-managers talking about a problem.<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes I was told that the “problem” that new parents wish to see addressed in this new CoP is the “mommy tracking”: the fact that they are “kept from promotions because of their parental status.”<\/p>\n

Le sigh. Am I the only one who thinks “Really? Are ya kiddin me?<\/p>\n

Because ladies (and gents), umm, have you seen the private world? I know I am not a mommy, and thus subject to all manner of attack for my clear lack of understanding the perils of mommyworld, but really, reaLLY!?<\/p>\n

Being a mommy is hard, no doubt, it might be the hardest job; it might mean you DECIDE to work less (part time, telecommute, longer leave) but it IS a choice, right? To be a super-power career mom, you give up some time at home, a choice that is a very hard one, one I probably wouldn’t make, but a CHOICE. Likewise, if you DECIDE to spend more time at home and less at work, while that too might be a hard choice, it is one… one that comes with the consequences of less chance for promotion and certain “choice” work assignments because ummm… you’re not here.<\/p>\n

Likewise, some of your single gal colleagues, just so you know, would be happy to have a few less “choice” assignments; a few less times where its assumed they can come in, handle whatever is going on, because they’re not mommies what else could they be doing?<\/p>\n

Am I oversimplifying? Probably. But I guess I just am finding it hard to swallow that mommies are the only ones struggling to balance their work and their lives, make that New Parents, as this group did. I can’t actually think of a bigger oversimplification.<\/p>\n

Let the flames commence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mommy-track post, or as Maggie Dammit would say, the post in which I lose several readers (in a fiery rage? she didn’t say that part). Anywho, back to my point, which was… am I evil for resenting a “New Parent Community of Practice” recently (heh) spawned at work? Don’t answer yet. Let me explain. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[766],"tags":[650,663,165,678,217,10,682,683,337,716,717,725,35,756,41,43,45,763],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wash","tag-balance","tag-club","tag-dc","tag-employer","tag-fairness","tag-family","tag-family-friendly","tag-federal","tag-life","tag-mommy","tag-mommy-track","tag-parenting","tag-single","tag-unfair","tag-thats-how-dc-rolls","tag-washington","tag-work","tag-work-life-balance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}