Thursday, January 22, 1998

Children and networking, breast-feeding and sexual harassment

By Carol Kleiman / Chicago Tribune

Letters, I get letters and faxes and phone calls and e-mail. This correspondence is edited.

Reader: I can't believe you'd advise anyone to take a 1-year-old child to an "important networking meeting," as you have done. What kind of a manager, with advance notice of an important meeting, is "unable to find a babysitter"? Are all of the others going to bring their children for a combination meeting/play date?

If people would give their full attention to work, we all might be able to go home to our children in time to spend quantity time together.

Comment: Yes, that was my advice. I think it's time to stop hiding the fact we have family and personal responsibilities -- even though a network is an informal organization that meets outside the office. If a child gets disruptive during a meeting, just leave.

In answer to your second question about whether everyone is going to bring their children: No, just women.

Reader: A major obstacle to success for women in the workplace comes from missing work because a child or the day care provider is sick. I'm trying to find out what happens when parents have no backup. Do you have any statistics?

Comment: I've tried to find that particular stat myself, with no luck. If it were available, perhaps more attention would be paid to a serious problem that impacts more on women than men. Women's problems -- like research on breast cancer -- often are ignored and therefore not solved.

Reader: I appreciate your support of the congressional proposal to extend the Family and Medical Leave Act to include businesses with as few as 25 employees. My husband is a hemophiliac who was tainted by blood products in the l980s. He now has AIDS, is at home and will not return to work. I'm almost out of vacation, sick and personal days and need the leave act to care for him -- and keep my job, which I now need more than ever. That's why I work to expand the act and watch for legislation that might weaken it.

Comment: I'm sorry to hear about your husband. At the same time, I appreciate your commitment to helping others and yourself. My advice: Keep a close eye on those folks in Congress!

Reader: I am a single mother, go to school part time and want to be a journalist. But I'm afraid I'm stuck in my current job, which I despise. How can I make the move?

Comment: You know you have to hang on to your present job, even if you hate it, in order to take care of your family. But, at the same time, you can get started on your writing career by doing freelance work. Newspapers and magazines are happy to use freelancers in order to save money. Read them, see what they're publishing and suggest story ideas that fit in with their needs. When you get a scrapbook full of clippings, you'll have the credibility you need to start hunting for a journalism job.

Reader: I'm an at-home mom, a breast-feeding mother and a member of La Leche League. I hear often from working mothers who find it difficult to pump milk at work because they have no privacy. Working nursing mothers need a comfortable, private place to pump, employer-approved time to do it and, if needed, breaks to go to their babies.

It's time for employers to face the needs of working mothers.

Comment: I celebrate every time I hear of another company that provides space and facilities for nursing mothers, which can be done with little money. Women who want to nurse after they return to work often are stressed out from trying to do so. I know of a woman in Manhattan who takes a taxi home every noon to nurse her baby. She's frazzled, but her company doesn't cooperate in any way.

I also know of businesses where women got together -- whether nursing or not -- did extensive research and showed management the benefits in time and money to have a so-called "mother's room." And it worked.

Reader: I enjoyed your recent column on sexual harassment in the military and have to admit the point is better made with humor. I liked in particular your suggestion that the drill sergeants wear protective cups, just like little boys in Little League.

It might work!

Comment: Thanks for your positive comments. I also got a lot of hate mail from military men. I guess they're not aware of the recent findings of rampant sexual harassment in the armed forces.

Reader: Your column about improper training of men in the military in how to act toward women was terrific and clear. There's something else that better training would accomplish: Their treatment of women when they're sent overseas. Perhaps we wouldn't hear of so many allegations of rape of civilian women in foreign countries. Women, regardless of nationality or military status, should not be prey.

Comment: I don't think better training can be achieved unless women -- both military and civilian -- have some input into what should be taught.