BRING YOUR DAUGHTERS (and your sons, too) TO WORK DAY

I’m the proud father of two boys and two girls. I’ve always had the ide­al­ized notion that my wife and I would raise them all gen­der neu­tral. You know, boys could play with dolls, and the girls could play with trucks. But the truth of the mat­ter is that the boys choose trucks, and the girls choose dolls.

And the girls (a few years younger than the boys) talk a lot more about hav­ing crushes on boys and hurt­ing each other’s feel­ings than the boys ever did. In my own lit­tle house­hold lab­o­ra­tory, it’s been clearly shown that boys and girls are different.

When I first heard about Bring your Daugh­ters to Work Day almost a decade ago, I was excited because I thought this was a easy and pow­er­ful way to help my lit­tle girls see they could be more than a school teacher or a sec­re­tary (not that there’s any­thing wrong with those pro­fes­sions, but they should be a choice and not an implied expectation).

How­ever, by the time my princesses were old enough to par­tic­i­pate, sons where invited as well. It became bring all your off­spring to work day. Here’s a quick his­tor­i­cal overview from the web­site Col­lege News:

Back in 1993, the foun­da­tion was called sim­ply Take Our Daugh­ters to Work Foun­da­tion, and its pur­pose was to show young women the ben­e­fits of a col­lege edu­ca­tion at a work, office, or career set­ting. At the time, col­lege admis­sions for women were decreas­ing, and the orga­niz­ers of Take Your Daugh­ter to Work Day felt that some­thing needed to be done.

The pro­gram was cre­ated in hopes of boost­ing self-esteem for young women, offer­ing an insid­ers per­spec­tive to the work­force which had just expe­ri­enced an influx of female pro­fes­sion­als from the 1980’s career boom. In 2003, the pro­gram was expanded to include sons. Nat­u­rally, the boys felt a lit­tle left out.

This new for­mat was:

Designed to be more than a career day, the Take Our Daugh­ters And Sons To Work^® pro­gram goes beyond the aver­age “shadow” an adult. Expos­ing girls and boys to what a par­ent or men­tor in their lives does dur­ing the work day is impor­tant, but show­ing them the value of their edu­ca­tion, help­ing them dis­cover the power and pos­si­bil­i­ties asso­ci­ated with a bal­anced work and fam­ily life, and pro­vid­ing them an oppor­tu­nity to share how they envi­sion the future and begin steps toward their end goals in a hands-on and inter­ac­tive envi­ron­ment is key to their achiev­ing suc­cess. ~ from the Take Our Daugh­ters and Sons to Work Foun­da­tion Web­site

It seems like male inclu­sion and fam­ily bal­ance became big­ger pri­or­i­ties than help­ing young girls see big­ger career oppor­tu­ni­ties. And that both­ers me. First I think the lat­ter is a big­ger prob­lem, and sec­ond why do we need a foun­da­tion to help active boys feel involved and show them how to bal­ance work life pri­or­i­ties. That’s what reg­u­lar par­ent­ing is sup­pose to do.

Tak­ing daugh­ters to work seems a clear and direct idea to expose them to pos­si­ble career paths. Every spring when this day rolls around, I get mad about how our soci­etal need for inclu­sion has diluted a great solution.

Okay, enough vent­ing! For the next post I’ll check out some of the facts. After all, I hear col­lege enroll­ment is up for women, maybe a daughters-only pro­gram really isn’t needed.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Am I being an old fem­i­nist cru­mugdeon? Should boys have the same chance as girls? Or am I on to some­thing? I would love to read your thoughts. Let me know what you think in the com­ments section.