Take Your Child to Work Day

A zippy and irritating essay in last Wednesday’s USA Today asks the question: “Where Can I Get a Child to Take to Work?”  In it, Columnist Craig Wilson (who shares that he is childless), laments his poor options for Take Your Child to Work Day. He considers borrowing a child, but decides “it’s not the same as having your own.” Readers like me who have faced infertility can empathize with the “out of the loop” feeling Wilson describes. Though he doesn’t disclose why he never had children, he does note that he wanted to be a father and “is “good with kids.”

It’s hard to maintain empathy as the essay progresses, however. Wilson’s article is brief, but he dedicates a sizeable chunk of its word count to judging parents. Listen up, all you overprotective moms and dads:

“If I had kids…I’d leave them alone to make their own mistakes. Something, of course, that is rarely allowed these days. Yes, I hear the helicopters…”

I remember musing about parenthood before I had kids, too. About how I’d get a ton of work done, for example, when my infant was sleeping. As it turns out, babies will either sleep or not sleep, irrespective of one’s work deliverables. Children also turn up with unexpected medical conditions, phobias, and other issues that are not always evident to the casual observer. Some choppers circle closely because a smudge of peanut butter on a park bench can send their child into anaphylaxis.

Also notable is how Wilson characterizes an acquaintance’s pride in her granddaughter as bragging. Her offense: showing him a photo of a baby and smiling. Does Wilson consider John Grisham a braggart for promoting his new novel on a talk show? Is Yo Yo Ma self-aggrandizing for playing a concert?  There may be a more difficult, rewarding, extended, baffling, triumphant, mysterious and unremunerated career than child-rearing, but I don’t know what it is. Why is it that in America, parenthood is not considered “real work,” but the job performance of mothers and fathers is regular fodder for biting public critique?

Here’s what qualifies Wilson as an expert: hanging out with nieces and nephews “for hours” at Christmastime, and spraying neighborhood kids with a hose. Does he also judge cardiologists on stent procedures because he attended their group’s holiday office party? Wilson is a textbook “fun czar” when it comes to kids, to use Dahila Lithwick‘s term. In other words, he’s all levity and brevity. No decades of round-the-clock responsibility and guilt-soaked foibles to temper his sense of omniscience. Parenting is nothing if not humbling, and humility is all about accepting the limits of your understanding.

But back to Wilson’s original query. Where can he get a kid to take to work? The answer has to start with another question: why, for pity’s sake, is this event held during the school year? In about six weeks, millions of American children will begin summer vacation. They’ll need something to do for 75-100 days. If that entire season doesn’t suit, Wilson can book a kid during Spring Break. Or Winter Break. Or during the four-to-seven national holidays observed by most school districts. Then there are teacher workdays, snow days, and sick days. And that’s just for the kids between the ages of five and eighteen. Children under five years of age can accompany him to the office year-round because there’s no public preschool option for the majority of American families.

The “out of the loop” feeling Wilson confronts once a year plagues parents every week as they struggle with conflicting career and family obligations in a country with unenlightened work policies. They do so with fewer benefits at the office, fewer teachers in the classroom, and fewer family members and neighbors available to pinch-hit. Before next April rolls around, Wilson might stop by the cubicle of a co-worker with kids. If she arrived at the office a little late, her babysitter might have flaked. If he looks exhausted, he might have been up all night with a vomiting child. For the 364 days a year that it’s not Take Your Child to Work Day, it’s You Can’t Take Your Child To Work Day. Which for Wilson means, it’s Take Your Co-Worker to Lunch Day.