Even when my two daughters were living at home and not out creating new worlds or leaving some in their wakes, I was not enamored of taking one of them to work with me. Although for most of their adolescence(s), I had my own company, there was a period of two or three years where I could have brought them to my office, but even at its inception, I thought the idea was an offshoot of the "Women's Movement" and, hence, political correctness.
While I was not enamored, I understood some of the process. Take your daughter to see what you do, and it might open new doors or windows to opportunities for them. On the other hand, would my daughter(s) ever want to become personnel managers? No, what we really should have had and should have today is for someone else to take my daughters to work, someone more successful than I. Let the CEO of Hewlett-Packard take my kids (and please let her last until I finish this editorial). Okay, let the CEO of E-Bay take your daughters. For that matter she should take your sons, too.
That's the whole point. When this started in the 70s, girls didn't have the opportunities or role models for careers. For that matter, the economy and society was such that girls didn't need careers. Career mapping was for men, primarily. Women would go to school or to some job, meet a man, get married, have kids, have their husbands die, and live out their lives taking pleasure in their grandchildren since their kids would never write or visit anyway. Now all work-related infirmities are distributed evenly. Women have as many ulcers as men ... although some are just carriers. If they do live longer, it's only because of the advances in medicine. Women go to school to actually learn, meet their significant others (if you want to come up with another term, come up with one for that), work to co-support the 3600 square foot house, perhaps squeeze in (out?) a kid or two, continue to work to pay for day care and college, retire at the same time as their spouses, and both taking pleasure in their grand.... uh ... dogs or travel until they jointly break a hip and are left watching and yelling at CNN for the rest of their lives. Actually, it's he who breaks a hip while she goes off either to climb a Himalaya with a Sherpa guide or join an ashram in Cottage Grove.
Here we are 30 years after "Take Your Daughter to Work" day started, and we're still either wasting a day doing so or we're discriminating against our sons by not taking them out of school for the day to benefit from the presentation of the tasks you do every day, enhanced by your momentary loss of remembering all the things you dislike about the job. "Here's where mommy spends 12 hours a day. See, she has a headset so that she can stay on the phone for six hours a day and keep her hands free for the keyboard. No, mommy couldn't hire another person to help. She doesn't have that kind of persuasive abilities, but they did give her this PDA to keep track of the 11 meetings she goes to every day. No, she can't take you into a meeting. You shouldn't hear language like that."
Let's face it. Our kids, male or female, could probably benefit from knowing where the money for those Razor scooters comes from, and seeing the "harder" side of work as well as the enjoyable parts, if any. Do they really need to know at age 10 what mommy does at work? Since work is now unisex, will it make any difference or impression? To set one day a year just for girls, girls who are probably too young to understand anyway, just brings to mind the history of Mother's and Father's Days which were the inventions of greeting-card manufacturers and flower-sellers.
I'm probably older than 95% of those reading this column. (96% in 2005) Maybe I'm unusual. I knew what my dad and mom did. I didn't follow those paths although like my dad, I did end up owning my own company and being prone to migraines. The world has changed, and we've got to change with it. What you show your kid today probably won't exist in five years anyway. Why muddle their little minds with stuff like ERISA, RICO, ADA and your other friends. Stay home with them one day and show them things of real value like how to work TiVo, cook pasta with portabello mushrooms, and why putting a buck on $190 million Super Lotto allows you to dream just as well as putting ten bucks on it. Things of value: TivOiNg "Boston Legal;" cooking good Italian, and the statistics of the lottery and why mommy will be working next week. Can't learn that on Take the Kid to Work Day.
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