Post by ringstrue on Sept 10, 2012 15:13:29 GMT -5
I see the realtor position as different. I could even see bringing baby to the class room if as the teacher it's test day or demo day- we had a lot of non-lecture classes where the prof/instructor was more a guide than a leader or giving a talk to the class. But if you are basically there to give a 50 min speech, I just don't get how having a baby with you (and you alone) is doable.
1. I think missing the first day of class as a professor IS a big deal. That's when students come to get a feel for the class and some are decided which classes to take or drop. Missing class could have meant people dropped her class and the class got cancelled. Who knows if she had a TA.
2. BFing in a women, sex, culture class... um, it's practically a lesson from the syllabus so if someone can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
3. Unprofessional? Maybe, but shit happens and someone has to scramble. I was a K teacher and TWICE I had to take my kid to school because the babysitter got sick and I found out 40 minutes before my students arrived. My DH works an hour away and you can't just pull a sub and sub plans out of thin air. So my baby crawled around on the floor while my students squealed and didn't get any work done until I could write plans and wait for a sub to arrive on one day and the other day until my husband could pull a U turn and drive all the way home to get her. It was probably unprofessional, but my admin would have held it against me for years if I had called in sick less than an hour before school started.
4. I'll say it. If a male professor had done the same thing with his sick kid and had to stop to bottle feed, the school paper would have written an article about devoted dads and how great it is when men take an active role in child care. I am CONFIDENT that he would have had ooohs and aaaahs and a shining halo above his head.
I vote for "much ado about nothing" and think her students need to chill out. Didn't half of them have boobs and the other half go to college in hopes of seeing boobs anyway?
laurier - I think there is also a huge difference between a realtor-client relationship and a professor-student one. In your case, the client has more "power" in the relationship to speak up if they don't like what you're doing, right? I'm not sure exactly how the Canadian system works, but I would imagine if they feel you're not meeting their needs they can ask to be released from their contract and find a new realtor. Whereas with students and a professor, if a student feels that his/her educational needs are not being met, he or she runs a risk in complaining, and probably can't just take a class from someone else.
People could absolutely fire me if they didn't think I was working adequately. And like I said, I DO give people the choice and they always choose the baby. that being said, its not really a distraction when we leave the kid in the living room of the house and go check out the rest of the place
The BFing I find no big deal but the wandering sick baby sounds no bueno.
But, it was one time because of extenuating circumstances. I guarantee you she won't do it again. Why? Because having a baby at work just doesn't work. I've had to do it a few times and it's just not fun. And I can shut my door and no one is the wiser. But I can't get work done. It's either watch my baby or work but not both, certainly not successfully.
But this isn't about who's a feminist and who isn't. I wish people wouldn't frame it that way.
Post by basilosaurus on Sept 10, 2012 16:19:59 GMT -5
My adviser (in engineering) bf her baby in front of me once. She was on mat leave for the semester, but we had to meet with our advisers to discuss our schedules so that we could get a code to register for the next semester's classes. Honestly, nbd.
Yes, I get that a baby crawling around can be a distraction, but it's probably only a 50 minute class. A germy crawling baby seems no worse to expose college kids to than whatever antics they were up to the first week back.
Post by thejackpot on Sept 10, 2012 16:25:32 GMT -5
Am I failing at reading comprehension? I see it as two different women 1) AU prof brought baby to first day and 2) another woman made a practice of bringing her mobile baby to class. Correct me if I am wrong. It seems as if Mom 1 was in a pinch and brought baby to pass out syllabus/ happened to nip and offended student while Mom 2 did not have childcare.
I had a childcare fiasco and had to bring my son who was 9 months at the time to school- I work in a high school and it was prior to the first day of class so a 9th grade orientation day. I wore him on me as I did my welcome and nursed after the kids left. I felt like I did not have a choice. Sometimes schools make you feel like you HAVE to be there and that was at a stage in my career where I felt backed into a corner.
Right? I'm sure it's not like this woman was like, "I know what would be ideal! Why don't I take my sick baby to work on the first day of school!?!?!" If anything, this was a good lesson for a class that should be talking about the difficulties of balancing work and motherhood.
I am very pro-bfing and nursed in public without a cover (covered, but no actual cover) for 1 year and 3 or so months. Bfing, while shouldn't be, can be distracting. In a professional manner it should be avoided for fear of someone being uncomfortable. Like someone mentioned, you wouldn't go into your bosses office or a meeting and just start feeding your kid.
I am also against bringing your kids to work. You should have researched nannies on calls or something prior to getting to class. Offer a student you know, who doesn't have class, to watch the baby in your office...etc. It's unprofessional to have a child in your arms while you are lecturing a class. This goes for both dads and moms for me.
I am also against bringing your kids to work. You should have researched nannies on calls or something prior to getting to class. Offer a student you know, who doesn't have class, to watch the baby in your office...etc. It's unprofessional to have a child in your arms while you are lecturing a class. This goes for both dads and moms for me.
See, this right here pisses me off.
There is no such thing as magic nannies on call that you can just get to come for the day. My company subsidized sick kid care, and it was still something insane like 200$ a day, at the subsidized rate. And yah fucking right is my sick kid going to be all hunky dory about going to some strange lady for the day.
I have no in laws or parents that live near me. I have friends I can call but not for a sick kid. Even if it was a well kid and my regular sitter was sick, if I had to make a morning call for that day, I have about 3 sahm friends I could call, which I think is pretty good. But if I had to make a morning-of decision, I am going to put the odds of any of them answering the phone in the midst of getting their own kids to school, let alone being free that day, at about 5%.
Maybe I am being unreasonable, but I think it puts a student in a bad position to ask them to babysit for you, even for an hour. If you had something like that set up in advance- but the odds of needing that sitter is pretty low, right? So you might go through the trouble of interviewing people to have on call, only to never call them. Plus, to set it up in advance, you would have to have different people available for different classes based on their schedules- i am getting a headache already. I'd take the risk that once a year I had to bring a baby to one class.
Childcare gaps happen, but on-call care hardly exists for well kids in this country, let alone sick ones. Parents do the best they can, if they have to bring the baby to class one time ever, I just am not going to get worked up about it.
1. I think missing the first day of class as a professor IS a big deal. That's when students come to get a feel for the class and some are decided which classes to take or drop. Missing class could have meant people dropped her class and the class got cancelled. Who knows if she had a TA.
2. BFing in a women, sex, culture class... um, it's practically a lesson from the syllabus so if someone can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
3. Unprofessional? Maybe, but shit happens and someone has to scramble. I was a K teacher and TWICE I had to take my kid to school because the babysitter got sick and I found out 40 minutes before my students arrived. My DH works an hour away and you can't just pull a sub and sub plans out of thin air. So my baby crawled around on the floor while my students squealed and didn't get any work done until I could write plans and wait for a sub to arrive on one day and the other day until my husband could pull a U turn and drive all the way home to get her. It was probably unprofessional, but my admin would have held it against me for years if I had called in sick less than an hour before school started.
4. I'll say it. If a male professor had done the same thing with his sick kid and had to stop to bottle feed, the school paper would have written an article about devoted dads and how great it is when men take an active role in child care. I am CONFIDENT that he would have had ooohs and aaaahs and a shining halo above his head.
I vote for "much ado about nothing" and think her students need to chill out. Didn't half of them have boobs and the other half go to college in hopes of seeing boobs anyway?
#2 -Yeah, the fact that breastfeeding, or the challenges of women in the work place might be covered in class don't make it ok to live an example in class. I'm guessing they're going to cover a *lot* of things in the next 16 weeks that we'd never approve of being acted out in class.
#3 - The challenges of a family and career are no exclusive to those in academia. There's no way in hell my bosses would approve of me bringing my child to work, letting him/her crawl around my office and be in professional meetings, and start breastfeeding in front of my clients. It's unprofessional in just about ever single career.
#4 - I'm not saying you're not right about this, but it's not really the point. It's like introducing policies about insurance not covering vasectomies or Viagra. It might make a point, but it doesn't address the real issue here.
That's what I don't get about the haterade. It was one time. Any parent knows that sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation and it won't always be the perfect solution. It wasn't as if she was proposing bringing her baby to class as an everyday thing. One time.
Post by barefootcontessa on Sept 10, 2012 17:09:36 GMT -5
Ditto Emily. Good luck getting tenure. I hope she has stellar publications because at my institution (and many others I would bet) this would not be acceptable.
I am also against bringing your kids to work. You should have researched nannies on calls or something prior to getting to class. Offer a student you know, who doesn't have class, to watch the baby in your office...etc. It's unprofessional to have a child in your arms while you are lecturing a class. This goes for both dads and moms for me.
See, this right here pisses me off.
There is no such thing as magic nannies on call that you can just get to come for the day. My company subsidized sick kid care, and it was still something insane like 200$ a day, at the subsidized rate. And yah fucking right is my sick kid going to be all hunky dory about going to some strange lady for the day.
I have no in laws or parents that live near me. I have friends I can call but not for a sick kid. Even if it was a well kid and my regular sitter was sick, if I had to make a morning call for that day, I have about 3 sahm friends I could call, which I think is pretty good. But if I had to make a morning-of decision, I am going to put the odds of any of them answering the phone in the midst of getting their own kids to school, let alone being free that day, at about 5%.
Maybe I am being unreasonable, but I think it puts a student in a bad position to ask them to babysit for you, even for an hour. If you had something like that set up in advance- but the odds of needing that sitter is pretty low, right? So you might go through the trouble of interviewing people to have on call, only to never call them. Plus, to set it up in advance, you would have to have different people available for different classes based on their schedules- i am getting a headache already. I'd take the risk that once a year I had to bring a baby to one class.
Childcare gaps happen, but on-call care hardly exists for well kids in this country, let alone sick ones. Parents do the best they can, if they have to bring the baby to class one time ever, I just am not going to get worked up about it.
I was looking for nannies for the newb mexi and there is an on-call nanny/sitter website that came up. I forwarded it to my sister (SAHM) who wants to shop in peace sometimes and can't get our mother for that day. So she looked into. It was the only reason the on call nanny thing was familliar to me.
I also don't have this problem, so it can be taken with a grain of salt. Z goes to school, my mom is home and so are my inlaws, so I have it good. I am deeply aware of that. If we were alone I would think I would try to find some back-up. The DC and schools make you aware of what constitutes a sick kid who you must find additional care for on those days. Odds are you are wagering the night before about how sick your kid is. So not tons of time, but enough time to try and make an effort. If all else fails, then you must call in sick.
I am also not a teacher, so my weight in that department is not great. I am in accounting and the first three days of every month we are required to be here unless we are dying. So they swear. H would have to take off if I couldn't. My office is very laid back and I would never ask to bring my sick kid into work. It's just not appropriate in my eyes.
Post by cookiemdough on Sept 10, 2012 17:34:09 GMT -5
I dont know how I made it the last five years without bringing my kid to work! And without family close by at that! Come on really? If you have a job where it is acceptable to bring your kid that is one thing but clearly her bringing her child was a distraction and therefore unprofessional.
Also, I think it's kind of indicative of how removed academics can be from 'real life' in that she thinks it's totally normal and OK to just bring your kid to work if you can't find childcare.
Kind of reminds me when I was in grad school and my advisor (who was the department head) suggested that I take a 12 week leave from my job to do an internship. I was like, uhhh what? I'm pretty sure my employer isn't going to say "oh sure, just take 3 months, do whatever you want" and also, I kind of need my income to live. He looked at me like I had two heads when I said it wouldn't be possible.
I'd bring a sick child into work and I work at a law firm. And I'd do it without thinking twice. The one place I wouldn't bring a toddler is court, but if I really was having a childcare emergency and couldn't work something else out I would ask my secretary to watch the child while I was in court, and I am 100% certain I would have the support of my employer if I had to do it.
So secretaries are now part time child care providers?
A unionized job would flip out lol. Adding job duties that are not in the contract?
As a general rule, no. In an emergency situation if I had to be in court and could not find backup care? I'm sure she would offer, and I'm sure it would be OK with my employer. Otherwise, if I had a child, and if he or she needed emergency childcare, I'd bring the child into my office. It happens. Not regularly, but I've certainly seen it (both by staff and attorneys). My secretary brings her daughter in maybe 3-4 times/year when her childcare falls through. So I don't agree at all that no one in a corporate job would try this.
Since we are going all anecdoty: My mom was the managing partner of her firm (the local branch). She only ever let me come to work on Saturdays when the office was quiet. And i sat in a room by myself and read/did homework.
If I was sick, she had to call in a favor or take a sick day. It sucked as a single mom, but even as the boss she couldn't/wouldn't do it.
Post by gretchenindisguise on Sept 10, 2012 18:35:14 GMT -5
My mom was a college professor: we went to school with her when we were sick or school was closed. It was great because her campus had a good arcade and basketball courts that we played at while she taught. Every once in a while, we sat in on one of her classes, but that was usually only when they were having a pizza day.
I'm with heyjude--I kind of don't get the hate. Not just, "well, I wouldn't be comfortable doing that, but it is what it is", but "how DARE she!". Sometimes, childcare falls through. I almost had to bring DD to a class this summer (I wasn't the teacher), but I was lucky enough to be able to call a nanny service that charged an hourly fee out of the budgets of most people. I feel like the "children never have any place in the workplace NO MATTER THE CIRCUMSTANCES" attitude is part (not all, just part) of why we have such a shitty work-life balance in this country. Sometimes, you have to meld your roles as worker and parent.
And, to answer Irish--it would make a difference in front of high schoolers. Not because I think it would scar the students to witness their teacher nursing her baby, but because minors are involved and dollars to donuts there are plenty of parents in any given class who believe an infant making use of lactating breasts is obscene. The parent backlash would make the teacher's head spin. Also, high schoolers--especially boys--would be worse at filtering out the fact that boobs, which are only portrayed as sexual in popular media, are being used, even if they couldn't see them.
I'm with heyjude--I kind of don't get the hate. Not just, "well, I wouldn't be comfortable doing that, but it is what it is", but "how DARE she!". Sometimes, childcare falls through. I almost had to bring DD to a class this summer (I wasn't the teacher), but I was lucky enough to be able to call a nanny service that charged an hourly fee out of the budgets of most people. I feel like the "children never have any place in the workplace NO MATTER THE CIRCUMSTANCES" attitude is part (not all, just part) of why we have such a shitty work-life balance in this country. Sometimes, you have to meld your roles as worker and parent.
I agree, to a point, but kid is sick. Why expose all to the germs?