Calling For A Change in Policy
The real "Mommy War" should be ALL MOTHERS UNITED (and fathers too!), fighting for individual, societal, cultural, economic and all other types of benefits and programs which could enrich everyone's lives, parent or not. Here's an idea, let's get everyone in on the action...
We don't need to pit parents and non-parents against each other either. Parent or not, aren't we all someone's kid? Children will grow into adults who will provide a whole slew of services for society, I am not aware of delineations made between those who receive their services as in "The Doctor will see you now." is not going to become "The Doctor will see you only if you were a parent."
Maybe it is the term "Family Friendly Policy" which makes people squirm, thinking the policies are being made only for parents, but really family extends much further. We all know of people who are responsible for giving care to relatives as well as friends. How about changing the term to "Caregiving Policy". Can you think of anyone who would be excluded? I can't.
Here is an example of how all of us can work together to enhance the work environment. Employers, why not accommodate nursing mothers? Employees, why not request the accommodations? Parent or not, why is it such a big deal to have a Pump Room? I think it makes more sense, and is certainly a healthier option, than a designated smoking area!
Take a look here. These blogging moms want to know how employers are accommodating mothers who pump at the workplace. If you have a story, please visit their site and participate in their project.
We will be posting more ideas about "Caregiving Policy" as we find them or think of them. Please leave your ideas in the comment section too. If we get enough of them, we will put them together and start sending them out to employers!
posted by Devra @ 9:53 AM
9 Comments:
Okay Devra, here I go....because not only am I a Mommy, I am THE MAN. As Director of Operations for a large corporation, I'm on the other side of the fence of most of these issues.
The problem with "Family Friendly" workplace programs is that they don't contribute to the bottom line.
We do allow people to pump at work, obviously, but realistically we can't AFFORD to set aside valuable real estate for a room that is only going to be used intermittently. Space is expensive. If you try to create a dual purpose room, say conference room/pumping room, then you have meetings getting constantly interrupted by mothers all pumping on THEIR schedule.
And let's discuss productivity.
It's a business. I am now paying you to pump. What am I getting in return? No one who pumps is ever interested in increasing their hours worked to give us back some of their lost productivity, even if it only meant an extra half hour a day. I can't FORCE them to do it. I can't ask them to clock out to pump, or I'm inhuman.
It is very easy to make these demands when you don't have the responsibility to cost justify the programs.
Is retention any better amongst employees that we allow to pump at will during their work day? You might argue that it is?
Nope. It's worse.
I will give another analogy as to why these things don't happen in the workplace more frequently.
At my office we have a huge contingency of people on Weight Watchers, myself included. I was asked to approach the owners about putting more WW friendly items in the snack machines. That we would be helped along in our quest if we had better choices in the machines.
That food sat in the machines until it went bad. The junk food went back in.
I am ALL FOR family friendly workplaces. I want both mothers and fathers to have places to work where the consideration of family is understood and embraced. But, mothers are going to have to realize that motherhood is not a "get of our jail free card" when it comes to your obligations at your work place.
Does your workplace make accomodations for you? ANY? If they do....ask what you can do to give back to the company? Your company pays your bills. Your company picks up a substantial portion of your healthcare benfits whether or not you believe it. I'm not asking you to become it's slave......but I would FALL OVER DEAD if any of the moms I do deals with or make accomodations for ever came in and said "hey I know we're always really short staffed on Sunday nights, would you like me to come in for a couple of hours to help out?"
It is a two way street people.
You ask what we are doing for you?
Lots. We can do more. We should do more.
What are you going to do for us?
Gidge,
I am glad you posted! This is a conversation which needs to be had and I want to have it here on our blog. I'm not one to shy away from issues, particularly if I brought it up in the first place when I called for a change in policy.
When you mentioned retention is worse for nursing employees who are given accomodation for pumping, are you talking about your own specific company's retention stats or did you find a study that supports employees who are permitted to pump at work are more likely to quit their jobs?
Where do your employees pump?
How many employees do you have who pump?
It is absolutely company specific. I would say that logically, I could be persuaded that companies which provided nice accomodations for nursing etc SHOULD have better retention rates. It would be an interesting study - but probably an HR nightmare because HR people would be terrified to admit that they kept track of employees who were nursing on the job for fear they would be accused of "targeting".
What I find, in my own specific arena, is that the employees are dissatisfied with their entire situation; being a new mom and back at work so soon (usually at 6 weeks despite the FMLA allowance), having to pump to provide the nutrition that breastfeeding affords. I think there is some of your Mommy Guilt as well......they worry that their milk is drying up too fast, their babies are taking bottles when they wanted to breastfeed until x date etc....it isn't going the way that they thought it would.
I think that one of the key issues in such workplace accomdation discussions is that the very concept of work life balance is a lie. There is no work life balance.
The truth is that as women we cannot have it all. And in fact, neither can Dads. We can have most of it, but something always suffers. The choices we make have to be about making sure that what suffers is not our children.
I'm not on a soap box saying that companies have no responsibility to their employees. We do. And the argument can be made that old white haired men have had their day in the sun and now it's our turn.
But I am raising men. And I want them to be raised in a world where businesses have the same respect for fathers as for mothers. Where the needs of the families are a factor, but that families understand that commitments have been made by one or both parental units to said company and that professional as well as parental obligations MUST be met.
This is the way of progress.
It is challenging to be a woman in power in a corporate world run by men. It is more challenging to be a mother. I love both jobs, but only one will I keep for life.
I currently have 2, it's less than 2% of my direct reports.
They pump in a bathroom that has a really large oversized handicap stall with good counter space for the pump and their bottles and stuff.
It takes them approximately 20 minutes 3 or more times a day.
This is such an important conversation to have, especially since Gidge, you are so honest about seeing multiple sides. Here's my two cents, and in giving it, I'm trying to get us to see a big picture, because I've been most impressed by large companies that are instituting family friendly policy because they are convinced that it makes their companies stronger and more profitable.
We all understand about how scarce office space can be (as in, where the hell is the lactation room going to go). I totallly understand not wanting to devote the conference room to lactation. I'm guessing that the women who want to pump have cubicles and not their own offices, so that's why finding a private space is an issue? Would it be possible to find an office, even temporarily for a nursing mom? Just an idea, because my instinct is that in most cases, these issues are very solvable. I also understand that sometimes it's easier for larger corporations to solve problems, and that smaller businesses feel more stretched.
But here's the comment I find most intriguing, and I want to direct our attention to it. Gidge, you mentioned that most women only take 6 weeks, despite FMLA giving us double that time. It seems to me that there is a larger problem going on, in that moms aren't made to feel comfortable taking that full time. I'm a new mother myself, and I decided to keep working this time around. I work at home most of the time, and on Thursdays I'm out of the house, teaching. I can tell you that all of this can be hellish, and in retrospect wish that I had taken several months off. I raise this because it seems that there's a larger office culture problem--that employees don't feel comfortable taking even the minimal time that our federal laws allow. My hunch is that this is the real issue about retention. Pumping is the most visible instantiation of this problem, and it may be why there's a fuss about it: it's the thing people can put their fingers on.
My other question, in the name of helping to solve a problem is this: most pumping mothers don't actually keep it going for that many months. It's just too hard. We're talking about such a short time, relatively speaking. But breastfeeding makes people uncomfortable, which is why this comes up. If retention is a problem, it's usually a whole slew of factors, of which pumping is the sexiest (those breasts!).
And last: I hear so often "we can't have it all." Usually followed by a resigned sigh. Respectfully, this gets us off course. In this case, the mothers aren't asking for it all. They're asking for something relatively small and focused: some support from their workplaces during a short period in which it's the hardest to get used to a new baby, to function on interrupted sleep, to integrate a new baby into a family with older kids (if they have them). Unless yours is the kind of company whose model is based on high employee turnover--and it doesn't sound like it is--it seems to me that helping moms through this short time is in your interest, just as it's in the company's interest to help employees through other shorter-term disability or hard spots. I know that when this support comes from the very top it makes a difference for both fathers and mothers.
I'd be really interested, gidge, in what you're able to imagine changing at your workplace. It seems like you're in the perfect place to find what's really possible, and show others the way.
Miriam Peskowitz
The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars
www.playgroundrevolution.com
My only real response after having been SO vocal previously would be to say that I agree with you on most points.
I do believe that we can't have it all - but I say it with a DUH rather than a sigh. Dad's never had it all - and it was a myth that we could. I'm okay with it. I realize that I'm doing what I can and that the choices I make, I make for my family. I miss first steps and first words but hopefully I can provide a quality of life that will make it worth it in the long term. I'm not trying to give my children THINGS, but I am trying to give them good education and good quality of life.
I think you are probably correct in the FMLA concerns you raise. FMLA is a shield that I watch people fearfully use. I had to co-erce my OWN mother to sign up for it for a different health reason - all the while she was worried they would terminate her when she turned in the paperwork. With my first child I took my full 12 weeks, and caught hell for it for a year. No direct hell, mind you. Just casual, indirect hell designed to let me know how I had dropped the ball by being gone that long. No one would have the nerve to say a word - directly.
When I had my twins, I took off five weeks.
And I received a lot of "Atta girls" for coming back way before I was physically or emotionally ready. Which is, of course, just so wrong.
When I get the doctor's releases for my ladies to return to work I always ask them the same question "Are you sure that you are ready to come back?" and they all answer yes - and it's financial. They can't afford to be off of work in the "protected" FMLA status - which is unpaid.
How do I envision making things better? Well, I try to do a little every day. I try to guide people in the right directions. I try to make humane management choices while keeping the interest of the company in mind.
I envision things being truly better, though, when mommy's stop being separate. I don't think we should ask for special considerations and I don't think we should think of those things as entitlements. And if we get them, we should show reciprocal support for our employers. It's easy to intellectualize the issues. It's difficult to actually have to manage them on a day to day basis.
And frustrating.......exceedingly frustrating.
Gidge,Miriam,
Thank you for continuing this conversation! Gidge, like you, I want a world where men and women can work, take care of themselves and others equally and all is harmonious. However, if people do not ask for what they need, then how will policies ever change to make it so? While right now asking for a lactation area may seem "special" maybe one day, if enough people keep requesting one, they will be standard issue in the work force. How do we get to that point of being able to get needs met without ever letting needs be known and giving employers a chance to respond to those needs? Wouldn't this increase employee retention? Increase appreciation and loyalty to one's employer? I think we live in a world where employee and employer loyalties aren't what they once were. It is rare to find, outside of the military, anyone who sticks with one company for their full 20 years. There is such a lack of trust on all sides as to whether policy changes will help, but I can't help but think they would.
What do you think?
I think you're right, I'll freely admit I'm a mercenary.....I am a gun for hire. I will work for the highest bidder. There is no loyalty because there is no reward for it. It's a changing culture and probably not for the better in that regard. I don't want anyone to come away thinking I believe a lactation room is a bad thing, I certainly don't. I wish MORE people would at least pump for the health of their children - regardless of how much of an inconvenience it is to me as a professional. Long term, it's better for society as a whole if they have healthier children and have lowered their own risk of breast cancer by breast feeding. But that's a different subject.
I also want to make one important point that I know everyone is not aware of....I am not your typical career mom, in that my husband is a stay at home dad. We made that decision consciously - that one parent should stay home. Because of that, I avidly pursue my own career to make sure that my salary equals the two people we used to be earning income.
So while I face many of the same frustrations working moms face....I have a huge luxury on my side. Dad is at home.
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