There has been a bit of press lately about the US Senate rules having been changed to allow Sen Tammy Duckworth to bring her 10-day old baby onto the Senate floor.
I’m all for employers having childcare facilities available, accommodating nursing (and all) mothers, and such. But I don’t understand why it is a good thing to allow workers to bring their children (infants or otherwise) with them to their workspace (other than on an occasional basis such as to show off a newborn, bring your child to work day, etc.).
I don’t feel terribly strongly about this, but would appreciate someone pointing out what I am missing.
Is she planning on bringing the babby for more than an occasional basis to show off? If so I can see how it could be disruptive if it turns out to be a fussy baby. If it isn’t a constant annoyance then I don’t see the big deal on the Senate floor per se: it’s not like any real work gets done there (as opposed to committees and back rooms.)
Orrin Hatch complained and wanted to know what would happen if there were 10 babies on the Senate floor. CNN’s Kate Bolduan pointed out that there are sometimes 10 times 10 babies on the Senate floor.
Just pissing off Orrin Hatch is good enough reason.
The general idea is that senators’ work schedules often do not conform to a typical 8 hour work day, meaning that putting a young kid in day care doesn’t help for times when votes are scheduled after typical business hours. Further, it is not legal to ask or direct a government employee to watch one’s kid while they go onto the floor to vote, leaving a senator with a young child in a sort of catch-22.
I’ve seen many people in my workplace occasionally get stuck in a bind where child care just doesn’t work out for some reason or another on a particular day. Maybe the kid has an illness and isn’t allowed in school, but the parent can’t take the day off of work for a pressing deadline. Nobody around here really cares about these sorts of occasional emergencies.
Note that the rule only applies to bringing infants on the Senate floor. I’m not sure what happens to a toddler, whose parent/senator may occasionally have the same emergency (need to vote on the Senate floor, but nobody available to take care of the kid).
As **Ravenman **points out this particular case it’s a more efficient answer for the Senate than setting up a whole after-hours infant care infrastructure around one or maybe two Senators at a time.
I suppose idea is also that after a year goes by the parents will have figured out a strategy for dealing with the toddler and it will be easier to do so than for a newborn.
My colleague recently brought her newborn daughter with her when she stopped by the workplace (a 9-1-1 center). She had some business to take care of but took the opportunity to show off her baby. And those of us working were thrilled to get a chance to visit. And since it didn’t create a problem for us doing our work I see no reason to bar such visits.
So long as it occasional and does not unduly interfere with business then such brief visits by children or families is welcome. And even occupants of the lofty halls of Congress would be wise to remember that we are all people with families and loved ones.
Like I said, I don’t feel terribly strongly about this. Other than that I can see a young child as a potential distraction - both to the parent and others. I guess I’m thinking of the fiction that people are expected to be attentive and productive the majority of time they are at work - which probably does not apply to Senators.
I thought I read that she did not intend to breastfeed on the floor. Which seems to me to sorta go against what many people suggest as a reason to HAVE the kid there.
And - a lot would depend on the baby. I’ve known babies who would sleep the day away in their bassinet, and others who would spur anyone in the same room to consider the merits of infanticide.
It seems as though Congress has sufficient facilities, funds, and staff to handle all manner of “unimportant” things. It would seem to me that kitting out a daycare center (wondering - don’t they already have one?) with provisions to hire contract nannies on an as-needed basis on the occasions that the Senate failed to get their work done during normal working hours - would be a perfectly workable - and possibly preferable - approach.
Or we could wait for it to be a problem before we fix it. This isn’t her first baby, so why not let her and her husband figure it out like we do with every other working family?
Maybe my POV is skewed, but my first reaction to a baby of my colleagues’ is “Can I hold it?” If it becomes disruptive to the work environment, you say something to the mother. That hasn’t happened yet, and I suspect it won’t.
Senators don’t spend a very large portion of their time on the floor. This is not comparable someone bringing a baby to work every day in a normal office.
Senators don’t have work hours. They’re pretty much always working and can be called on to attend to business at any time. So it’s much more complicated for a senator with a newborn to draw strict lines and still properly care for a newborn. An accommodation like this is perfectly reasonable to avoid the discriminatory result of hindering a senator with a newborn from doing her job.
Votes aren’t predictable. They happen when they happen. A bar on bringing babies to floor essentially means that a senator with a newborn has to miss votes.
Allowing this is far more efficient than requiring someone like Duckworth to have a permanent solution for a problem that is only sporadic. That’s inefficient. And it would be discriminatory to make Duckworth bear this burden on her own.
The whole notion that the occasional appearance newborn babies spoil a working environment is pretty much part of the structural sexism of our society and it’s good to see part of that being dismantled. The bigger sign of progress will be when you see a man senator take advantage of this change.
This is so predictable for every show when the ratings start to wane; bring in a cute baby or small child. I hope the kid doesn’t Cousin Oliver Congress.
There are thousands of staffers and other personnel who support the Senate, and even more in the nearny House of Representitives. The GSA provides child care services for government workers but the legislature is notorious for being a somewhat unfriendly environment for family support (and also apparently stacked with creepy letchers).
This is probably more about the optics of gender equality in the workplace than strict necessity as I’m sure Duckworth will have a child care area set up in her offices, but senators often work strange hours during the legislative session and need to be on the Senate floor during debates and voting in order to execute their responsibilities, which would make mother-child bonding problematic. The Senate rules previously disallowed having small children on the floor during working periods, so this is a notional change in rules to accommodate a novel situation (for the Senate). It makes for a nice story that isn’t focused on whatever random nonsense Trump tweetstormed out while taking a dump or watching Mitch McConnell ass-fuck another norm of Congressional tradition, but it isn’t as if this has broken a new glass ceiling; women executives have been bringing infants and toddlers into the workplace for a while now, and the Senate is just special because it is an issue they haven’t had to deal with previously.
It would be neither the worst nor most absurd development in the last few years of this sitcom.
Or just let the lady hold her damn baby. 99% of what happens on the Senate floor is people talking to empty seats. There’s really no reason to keep the kid out.
Duckworth was elected by her constituents to serve in the Senate. So she has a right to be present on the Senate floor. The Senate should go as far as possible in order to accommodate any Senator doing their job.
