“I’m Working Remotely. Can I Keep Hiding My Secret Baby?”
By Caity Weaver, April 16th 2020
This question appeared in the Work Friend Column of the New York Times (and was also filed in the Style Section, probably because it is about a woman and pretty much anything about women is relegated to the Style Section, though that’s a conversation for another day).
This Column answers a question posed by a self-employed woman who has a remote business partner who is a man. She did not tell him that she was pregnant and now that her baby has arrived, she doesn’t know how to manage the noises the baby makes in the background of calls, saying that he probably thinks the noises are coming from a cat.
Why did this woman not share with her remote business partner that she was pregnant over the course of the 8ish months she was probably aware of it? She explains that 1) she had a project that was supposed to launch earlier this year that she didn’t want it to be a reason that he would push back the launch date of a project that was set to come out earlier this year (it has been pushed back anyway). 2) “I figured he might not think I was as committed to the project once I had a baby.” 3) she also explains that they only talk every few weeks and aren’t especially close.
This situation is fascinating to me. I think the biggest reason I find it so interesting is the idea that a woman is perfectly capable to do a given job when she is able to be 100% committed to her job (ie without a family, partner or even hobbies getting in the way of her work) while a man is always capable of being committed to his work even if he has a family, hobbies and a partner.
When women give birth, they do go through a physical and emotional experience which is exhausting. Men do not go through this same physical and emotional drain, but I’d hope that any father of a newborn was just as exhausted and drained as the mother of a newborn because that would mean he was putting just as much work into caring for the baby.
I also find the solution thought up by Weaver, who responds to this question, to be quite awesome. She suggests that the new mother just mention the baby by name “oh I have to go check on Baby” and go about it as if the mother had explained the situation in the first place. She goes on to say that feigning confusion is the greatest way to get around anything. She explains that lying creates a trap as work must go into keeping track of any lie.
This whole question reminds me of the news coverage of Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, who took a working 2-week maternity leave in 2012 (when she had her first baby) and again in 2015 (when she gave birth to twins).
One article that appeared on the Daily Beast was titled: Marissa Mayer’s Two-Week Maternity Leave is Bullsh*t
“Working women can approach their policies however they choose” the article says, we should respect the decisions made by Mayer instead of judging the ways in which she goes about balancing motherhood and work.
On the otherhand, the article explains that Mayer’s decision suggests that women should “give up maternity leave for [their] careers”. The company, and the industry in general, often struggle to retain female employees, so this example set my Mayer, the article argues, is not one which encourages women in the workplace.