Working parent stereotypes
As I read website and blogs, sometimes I read a post or an article that really reinforces the working parent stereotype.
This person here states that since they work, they have no idea what their kids do on a daily basis. That person over there has no idea who their children’s pediatrician is.
Other people thank their lucky stars for a good nanny who will attend all those pesky school events while they work and wonder if 2 hours a day is enough to spend with their kids.
Good grief.
I maintain that most, though certainly not all, working parents are not like that.
Most parents who work just do what they do and come home each day. They are involved with their kids lives, they know what size shoe their kids wear and what they are doing in school.
Those who are extremely uninvolved with their kids’ lives may just be that way, job or not. Even parents who must work brutal hours can find ways to be involved if they choose to be.
Most working parents don’t forget their kids birthday party because they were in a meeting, and, while they are always looking for support or for ways to do things better, they usually don’t actively fret over the “true meaning” of work-life balance, they just do it.
Most of us are parents just living life and life happens to have a job with it and, like any other parent, some days are better than others.
When I read some of what is written out there, no wonder people have the idea that all working parents ignore their kids and make a job a higher priority than family.
It’s giving the rest of us regular working parents a bad name, and I don’t like it, sometimes.
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POSTED IN: Career and Kids
2 opinions for Working parent stereotypes
midlife mommy
Apr 27, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I recall sitting in an interview in 1998 or thereabouts with a senior member of my organization (I was there as a junior member, and we were recruiting new junior members). He actually bragged about never having time to go to anything of importance involving his children — that was for his wife to handle. We were interviewing a young man, and I hope that he was not impressed by this (hard to tell). I think the senior member’s pont was that the work was just so interesting that it was hard to attend to other things; it certainly didn’t come off that way to me.
I know that I’m biased when I say that you are probably reading articles and blog entries written by men? I think it would be hard for a woman to be so unplugged, but perhaps it’s just that I can’t imagine being so unplugged. I am very lucky. I work in a profession that is known for its long hours and weekend work, yet I managed to find a job where that is not expected. I make about half of what I would otherwise make (though they do pay me well), but I would so much rather have the time with my husband and daughter than make the big bucks. Just me.
JayMonster
Apr 28, 2008 at 3:54 pm
While, I hate parents that are like this, I find it just as annoying that as midlife mommy assumes, these people all “must” be men. (They may very well be, but in this day and age, I don’t think it is fair to make that “assumption” any longer).
I have seen just as many “Mommy’s” (especially when I worked in Manhattan) that were too busy with having to go to the spa after work, or some other inane (in my not so humble opinion) activity rather than having to be bothered raising their own children.
As you so well put it, people like this are just as unlikely to be attentive whether they worked or not. A seemingly good (old fashioned) example would be Mary Poppins, while the Mother in that was a “stay at home” mother, they still had a Nanny that they required to “mold the breed” for them rather than doing it themselves.
Odd people if you ask me… but what the heck do I know.
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