I was at a career expo for people in the theater industry this past weekend. After months of auditioning, and feeling stagnant, I wanted to learn where are the miscommunications happening? What am I missing that casting directors and hiring directors are looking for?
My second goal: find someone on this green Earth who is pursuing theater work while parenting small children!
Many women in theater take the 10 years (or more) until their children are in school to return to work. I tried that for a year, and it's not working for me. I do much better with both/and instead of waiting for a "someday" that may very well never show up.
The working world is not set up for both/and, it's an either/or game. Whether it is acknowledged or not, parents face well-meaning, but never the less prejudicial, beliefs about their abilities and availability.
When I was graduating from college, I was in my third trimester with my first child. I decided to run for some of the alumnae positions. It's mostly emailing the class quarterly, and compiling and sending updates to the alumnae association for placement in the alum magazine - not a difficult job. I lost out on the vote, but that didn't bother me as much as the reasoning behind why some people did not vote for me.
Women would actually tell me that they didn't vote for me so I wouldn't have to choose to spend time away my baby. As if I was not capable of understanding both the job description and the implications of my huge belly when I put myself forward.
Note this was a WOMEN'S college. To say that they should have known better would be an understatement.
It becomes more apparent to me as I spend more years at this parenting while trying to interact with the world thing, that the greater culture has NO IDEA what I do. None. At all.
Which explains some things about well meaning attempts to be inclusive to parents, and mothers in particular, fall flat.
A huge hurtle to having useful and effective work environments for parents is that each parent is working with a different set of parameters. Some need to be able to pick kids up from school, some need lctation rooms, some need flex time, some need site based child care. Often the same person will need all of these things at different points in her parenting life.
The typical American workplace is not so great with evolving needs. I’ve found many individuals aren’t so great at evolving needs. It’s much easier to say “do x, y, z and you are parenting friendly!”. It’s not that simple.
What I think *does* make a workplace parenting friendly is a self-aware workplace.
If a mother has to continuously inform HR that the lactation room is not up to code or that she is being given more work than she is being paid to do, that workplace sends the message that her work and needs are not valued.
It’s not the job of parents to educate each and every employer on how to not be a jerk to working parents.
It’s not my job to teach other women not to be patronizing and diminutive to another woman just because she’s a mother.
Frankly, I’m frustrated to be hearing that the working world is still in denial that parenting is a necessary part of the continuation of the species, but here we are. Because, really, this comes down to having respect for human life and the importance of the work of parenting AND the work of the economy.
This is not just a discussion for parents who work your typical 9-5 job! What about you parents who are freelancers, community leaders, or gig workers? What has been your experience?
Looks like there's still a lot of work to be done to improve workplaces.
ReplyDeleteIt's so difficult and challenging. I'm trying to be a work from home mom, but it is hard. I hope you get a role you love soon. Hang in there - I completely understand the frustration!
ReplyDeleteOh man, I am so sorry to hear that you've had some awful experiences! Especially with people not voting for you back in the day so you wouldn't have to "choose" to spend time away from the baby! Yikes. And what makes me really sad is that we don't just get this stuff in the culture at large, but we can also get a lot of it from religious circles, which is just horrible. I really love that you're talking about this, and also that you're mentioning stuff besides the traditional 9-5 job.
ReplyDeleteI think something that's a challenge for me is prioritizing my creative work when it doesn't involve any kind of money. I guess I've just gotten it ingrained into my mind that "real" work is the kind that brings in money, which is horribly utilitarian. And since what I have done/try to do is freelance write or contribute to a website as a volunteer, money rarely comes into play-so it's challenging for me to tell myself "I can do this" when it may not monetarily benefit our family. But as I've been hearing more and more about Jennifer Fulwiler's new book (which I really need to read soon), I've been thinking that creative work IS important, and I need to find a way to make time for it even if that time doesn't seem to come by easily.
I think one of the greatest failures of the feminist movement has been a push to consider only paid work as meaningful work. We fall into that trap ourselves! I'm guilty of saying things like "I just stay home with the kids" and don't think at all about the work I put into their homeschool lessons, field trips, daily care, the volunteer work at the church, classes I'm taking, etc. If it doesn't come with a job title, our culture doesn't count it.
DeleteI think creative work is SO important! I think women in particular can easily fall into a trap of only noticing areas of struggle, and forget to acknowledge that they are actually pretty talented people!