In which a baby video has me reading Marx

A couple of days ago, I came across a post on LinkedIn by a company touting the fact that its employees can bring their infants to work. I won't name the company because I don't want to put them on blast (also I can't remember it). The post featured a video, captioned 'Babies in the Boardroom', comprised of multiple shots of women—and it is entirely women, with nary a man to be spotted—in a conference room bouncing, feeding, and cradling their babies, ostensibly while 'working.'

Did I put that last word in quotes because I'm a snarky bitch? Or did I do it because I'm a mother who knows damn well that getting anything of substance done with a small child in tow is completely impossible? Two things can be true.

Make no mistake: I support flexible work environments 1000% and think companies should do whatever it takes to make life easier on parents of small children. But is turning a conference room into a daycare the viable solution here? The women in the video looked implausibly happy, almost on the verge of dancing. Look at how much I can juggle at once! And look how happy I am to do so! Is this how we're solving the childcare crisis in America? By turning working mothers into circus performers?

I deeply respect what this company is trying to do. And deeply question how much work these women are realistically getting done. A 6-month old child is a wriggly little creature that produces a wide variety of unpredictable noises, fluids, and smells. They're the world's cutest vacuums, sucking up shocking volumes of physical and mental energy. Just when you've figured out which buttons to push, they rewire the system on you. Children require enormous amounts of attention and thought (I can't believe I have to say that out loud). It is not a task you can knock out while building a PowerPoint deck. As just about every parent in the world discovered in 2020, getting actual work done with children in the room is a great way to go insane.

And of course it must be said that such 'flexible' workplaces only exist in the white-collar world. Try bringing your baby in for a shift at McDonald's and see where that gets you. This is a one-size-fits-one solution that will work for a very small set of women, in very specific types of jobs, with a specific method of parenting. It is not the answer.

As well-intentioned as this company is, it's just one more example of the ever-widening disparity between the classes in America. In The Netherlands, both parents are entitled to a maximum of 26 times their working hours of leave. That's 6.5 months for a 40-hour/week job. Norway has 49 weeks, for pete's sake. Guess where the U.S. ranks? At the very bottom, alongside Papua New Guinea.

I think what bothered me the most about the video was the hundreds of women cheering it on in the comments. (And just to reiterate one more time, an honest YAY! for a company that cares enough to even try.) But we're grasping so desperately for solutions to make our lives just a tiny bit more manageable that it can be easy to miss the pile of albatrosses massing around our necks. We're being tricked into bearing the burden of the shitty, self-serving decisions rich white men make to keep themselves in power. Why would we institute a universal basic income or extended parental leave or any kind of safety net that would help us raise happy human beings when we can force you to deal with it on your own? Strap that kid to your back and get back to work, peasant.

I almost ended this with an apology for my anger, but screw that. I'm past the point of frustration with the lack of support for mothers in America—jarringly bookended by the government's insistence that we become them in the first place. We need reasonable solutions that make sense for parents, children, and workplaces; parental leave policies that give mothers and fathers the time and flexibility they need to meet their family's individual preferences. We shouldn't have to raise our kids at the office.

Bonus post for everyone this week! If you want more like this, become a Super Friend.