Kid Intolerance (Hey, you used to be one too!) | May 08th 2007
Raising children and working full-time is tough. Working from home hasn’t been the complete resolution I thought it would be, but it has helped, particularly when I need to temporarily pull away from my desk to be there for my kids’ imminent needs.
That can mean things like rushing off to emergency doctor appointments, being available to hold them on my lap indefinitely when they are sick, or ferrying them around to see their friends at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
Because I work from home, I am able to do this all without much conflict, but I know that if I worked full-time in an office, leaving my desk for my family would either be impossible or, at the very least, cause resentment.
And this lack of empathy for parents and our needs (which are really our children’s needs) extends far outside the work place. It seems like every day I read another alarming story about how someone is denied public transportation because of a child’s tantrum or removed from a public place because they were breastfeeding.
Young children have tantrums. Babies need to eat. Families with babies and children need to get from point A to point B just like everybody else. Sometimes children have trouble speaking in hushed tones or holding back tears so, yes, you’re going to hear them cry.
Has our national patience run so thin that we can’t allow some poor family get to where they need to go? What’s next? Will we see “No Children Allowed” signs in every bus station and airport? And those (hopefully few) souls who love to point out that we “chose” to have children, and therefore brought all this negativity on ourselves, may want to discuss the decision-making process with their own parents.
As a society, we need to remember that children are not just miniature adults. Children are loud. They don’t like being stuffed into an airplane for 7 hours, but more importantly, they don’t understand the social responsibility of stifling their discomfort. But our children have the right to be in this world, no matter how loud or inconvenient they may be.
Would it be so difficult for us as a society to provide havens for parents to stop, take a break, and care for our children with some relative privacy? Small allowances, such as green areas or playgrounds at airports would give our kids a chance to run themselves right into a nice long nap.
Are we to be forever relegated to our homes, or “family-friendly” horror shows like Chuckie Cheese and McDonald’s, until the children can behave more like adults?
For that matter, why can’t doctors and dentists have evening and weekend hours? When you need to take a school-age child to the doctor at 10 am, it means you miss the morning of work, and they miss nearly an entire day of school.
I doubt we’ll start seeing more tolerance or accessibility for working parents until we embrace childhood in our society, with all of its imperfections, unplanned moments, and unrestricted enthusiasm.
For me the choice was clear – my daughters’ childhood comes first. They’ll need to retain an innate sense of joy when they remember their early years so they have the strength and motivation to implement child-friendly policies when they become President. Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long.