KATIE KORMANIK

I never encountered workplace barriers until I became a mom.

I don’t blame my company. I love my company. It’s a wonderful place to work, with a generous maternity leave policy and numerous perks for families. I blame “the way things are done” in our society at large.

Right now, most women have to choose between going into the office and being with their baby. It is crazy to me that some women only get six weeks of maternity leave, after which they need to put their newborn in daycare so that they can keep their jobs. 

Women have to choose between going into the office and breastfeeding. In my ideal world, women should be able to feed their baby any way they want—whether that’s formula, pumped milk, or breastfeeding. Some women choose not to breastfeed, and that’s okay—that’s their personal choice, and luckily doesn’t affect their ability to go into the office. But for those who, like me, choose to exclusively breastfeed, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The remainder of this post is primarily targeted at the world of knowledge work. Working during motherhood gets exponentially more difficult for those with careers requiring physical labor or skilled trades, and I’m not going to venture into that territory at the moment, though it is certainly just as important.

Imagine a world where parents brought their babies to work whenever needed. (Breastfeeding mothers would likely do this more often. When I completed my four-month maternity leave, I was still breastfeeding my babies every 2-3 hours.) Many people reading this are likely thinking, “Yeah right, how the h*** would that work?”

Here’s how I, personally, could have done it when my babies were four months old (again, assuming bringing babies to work is generally accepted). Let’s say I have three in-person meetings scheduled for the day, from 9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., and 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. 

I’m not saying every day would go perfectly smoothly. But it’s totally doable.

In fact, I did it with my first, and am doing it right now with my second. Well, almost. By a huge stroke of good luck, I am fully remote. I made the personal decision with both my kids to not put them in day care until they reached 1 year old. I take my meetings, and I do my work. And basically the pretend schedule I wrote above is exactly what happens, except that all my meetings are virtual.

I actually wasn’t a remote employee at the time I finished my first maternity leave. But, people who could were still largely working remotely since this was post-COVID, pre-RTO. On the rare occasion I actually did need to go into the office for someone or another, I brought my son. And guess what? I did exactly what I described above, even putting him to sleep under my desk.

In this photo, my son was six months old.

I took him to a working session exploring augmented reality. I took him to a team lunch. I didn’t ask for permission. No one cared—actually, almost everyone loved having a baby around—except for one person, who happened to be my boss’s boss (at the time). And that was the first time I felt any sort of barrier in the workplace. 

This is despite being a woman in a male-dominated field. I’ve always felt very comfortable around men, maybe because I have historically been surrounded by males: the competitive chess scene, my college math major. I have never perceived a “glass ceiling” or felt like I couldn’t participate. In fact, all the men I’ve ever worked with have not simply treated me with respect, but have seemed to enjoy working with me. We laugh and joke and talk about personal things. I’ve always had a jolly time with my male colleagues. The only barrier, in my case, was logistical. And this logistical issue was purely the result of me being a breastfeeding mom.

I don’t blame my former boss’s boss. No one did what I did. It wasn’t the way things were done—not just at my company, but pretty much all companies, as far as I’m aware. (If anyone works for a company that encourages bringing your baby to work, please comment!)

Now that I’m remote, I’m 100x more fulfilled in my personal life. No, make that 1000x. I feel so lucky that I am able to both do my job, which I love, and parent the way I want to parent, which includes breastfeeding. My daughter is nine months old now, and I still breastfeed four times a day. It’s extremely important to me.

Today I finished an intensive three-day training that lasted from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. every day. It took place in the Bay Area, so I had to fly here from Salt Lake City. And, since I’m still breastfeeding, I brought my daughter. I hired a babysitter from Care.com and booked a conference room in the same building for each day of the training where they could hang out. Twice a day for ten minutes, I slipped out to breastfeed her so that she could stick to her routine. Before and during this trip, people seemed surprised that I was going to / had brought my baby. They wondered how I was managing it. Most of them thought it was “awesome.” But I had gotten some questioning beforehand: would I be able to participate in the training?

Folks, a mom knows her baby. If a mom feels like things will be fine, things will most likely be fine. And everything went absolutely swimmingly (though admittedly, I am breathing a sigh of relief). 

But all this is to say, I wish the workplace culture in our society was different. Not all parents (not just mothers, but fathers and non-binary parents, etc.) would choose to bring their baby, maybe because their baby isn’t the kind that can sit quietly and play like mine happened to be. But I wish it were an option for those who do know they could be just as productive at work with their baby. Maybe even more productive, because they would be so much happier.