Has the productivity of the working mothers in your office dropped over the last couple of weeks? In her latest column, Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel says she knows hers has.
“Here’s the problem: It’s the end of the school year, and the activities, festivities, shortened schedules, special events, field trips, exams, brunches, concerts, recitals, graduations and class parties are, well, overwhelming,” Riegel writes. “A stay-at-home mom couldn’t fit them all in. A working mom doesn’t have a chance.”
While recently trying to coordinate and attend her own family’s end-of-the-year obligations—which this year included two high school graduations and an eighth-grade “graduation”—Riegel says she was reminded once again of how much responsibility falls to women when it comes to managing family and career.
“It’s not that men don’t do their part. Fathers today play a far more active role in the lives of their children than did their predecessors. An analysis in 2013 by the Pew Foundation found that fathers spend twice as much time today doing laundry, dishes and such than did dads in the 1960s,” Riegel writes. “But that same study also found that women still spend significantly more time than men on household chores and child care, while also spending almost as much time as men working outside the home. In other words, tending to the countless details that come with raising children still rests primarily with mothers, and it’s those countless details that make raising kids both rewarding and exhausting.”
If you don’t agree, Riegel says, you’re probably a guy.
“So try answering these questions: Did you remember to send the flowers for teacher appreciation? (Did you even know there was teacher appreciation?) Did you make brownies for the class party? Did you pick up your middle schooler when exams ended, most inconveniently, at 10:50 a.m.?,” Riegel writes. “Do you know where your children are going to camp this summer—in chronological order? Did you make sure the pediatrician signed their medical release forms? Did you remember to schedule their dentist and orthodontist appointments? Do you even know who their dentist is?”
If you’re a mom, Riegel says, you can rattle off the answers as naturally as you can recite the ABCs. And If you’re a dad, she says, you likely flunked the quiz.
Read the full column. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
