A place for children

image from here.


[Update: Sarah Hanson-Young has made a statement that details exactly what took place last Thursday.]

I found this article very distressing. Essentially Greens Senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, brought her 2-year-old daughter into the Senate Chamber yesterday evening, because she wanted to spend a little bit of time with her before she was flown back to Adelaide, and the toddler was thrown out by the Senate leader because it was time for a vote. Naturally the poor little girl screamed as she was handed to a staff member and shut away from her Mum. That image alone brings tears to my eyes, but what upsets me the most is the attitude of those people who are claiming that what Sarah Hanson-Young did was 'inappropriate' or 'a stunt' (I'm talking to you Barnaby Joyce).

People keep saying that she didn't have to bring her daughter into the Senate chamber. That she could have used the childcare centre or asked her staffers to look after her. But that isn't the point. She didn't bring her in because she had no-one else to care for her generally. She brought her in because she was in the middle of spending a small amount of one-on-one time with her before they were separated and was only given a few minutes warning that a vote was about to take place. There wasn't enough time for her to get back to her office to leave her daughter with her nanny and get back to the vote on time. So she basically had three choices: miss the vote, leave her 2-year-old alone, or take her in for a few little minutes. Surely she made the best choice in the circumstances?

I can see how it might happen that the Senate President decided to enforce the formal rules of procedure (although it is odd that he chose to now, when this kind of thing has happened before without incident), but what I can't understand is the level of nastiness that was displayed in the public reaction to this incident.

We have developed a really sick culture in our country where there are tons of places that children (especially small children and babies) are not welcome. Parents who enter these places - places of work, places of study, particular restaurants, movie theatres, etc - are simply expected to leave their children behind. In other words, children are expected to simply cease to exist out side of the home. This isn't the case in other cultures. In many places in the world children are welcome in most places - more than welcome, in fact, celebrated. In contrast, many people in Australia treat them like a bad smell. It makes me sad.

This separation of the world into an 'adult' (MALE/PUBLIC) world and a children's (FEMININE/PRIVATE) world is not only extremely damaging and unfair on children but it is extremely damaging and unfair on parents. For (mostly) female parents it means that they have a stark choice between being with their children or working - resulting in many women unwillingly dropping out of the workforce and others feeling constantly torn between their desire to be with their children and their desire to keep their jobs etc. AND for most fathers it means that they miss out of the majority of their children's lives. Wouldn't the world be a nicer place if we could break down those divisions a little more?

The comments on Mia Freedman's blog about this issue make me feel so very very depressed about the woeful state of feminism, equality and children's rights in this country:

This was the one that made me the most sad (especially the last line):

"Utterly unacceptable to bring your baby into Parliament. You are a politician, for God's sake, a public servant, should not you be concentrating on your job for which you get paid out of our tax money (very well at that).

I don't care for mothers' attitudes of being a saintly, superior being who deserves a very different treatment as long as they hold a baby in their lap. I could not bring a baby into my bank office. WTF? Pay for a childcare (oh wait, don't they get a special childcare centre anyway?!), ask your husband to stay at home, just get by like the rest of the population do. Bad, bad idea.

Mia, I don't care for any baby's need to suddenly have a 'face to face time with their mother'. If that's the case, quit your job or see your child during lunch."

This one is just untrue (Lily goes into P's work all the time - for very short stints of time), but says it all really:

"I think its unacceptable to bring your child to work. If you want to be a working mother, then you need to arrange someone to mind your baby. You can not have both. You can not work and have your baby with you, unless of course you work for yourself. She earns enough money and has no excuse. A workplace is an inappropriate place for a child. Most people would never dream of bringing their children to work."

BUT This one is FANTASTIC! Thank you Lorena:

"Slightly off topic; but I generally find that there is an anti-children feeling coming from society in general.
I have 2 children under 5 and I can't count the number of times that I have walked into a restaurant and had to put up with dirty looks or disparaging comments, because I had the audacity to take my boys out. Why shouldn't I be allowed to take my children to a restaurant, a shopping centre or a workplace without being made to feel like a pariah?
It seems that as a mother, the only places I should be seen with my children are at the park or at home like a good little housewife.

I have had to take my children to work. I have a boutique and my childcare options for the day were not available to me so I armed my kids with a backpack full of food and another backpack full of clothes and popped them in my office with a tv and a dvd. It was hard , but I didn't have a choice. Fortunately, I'm the boss, so I didn't have to face the humiliation of having my child thrown out as this poor woman experienced.

One more thing - I remember when I did fall pregnant. When I let people know, I was made to feel embarrassed. The general consensus was, that I had let the team down because I was looking at not being available for about a year and then afterwards (as a male colleague eloquently put it) I was a 'waste of a perfectly good position'. It seemed that once I had a child my priorities would no longer be with my job, but spending my time at the park or in the kitchen(!).
I quit that job - more so because I was working with a bunch of assholes than anything else. But I agree with Mia- we need to be supporting our mothers, not shaming them."

Andrew Bartlett has a great post about this, which puts it nicely into context (i.e. that this is far from the first time that a child has been in the Senate Chamber - which completely undermines all of the claims from people that this was 'clearly a stunt'). He also points out that voting is a mere formality. No debate takes place and most Senators spend the time talking loudly amongst themselves anyway - making the whole 'distraction' argument even more ridiculous.

There is also a nice post on this over at LP - which features this fabulous comment:

"If she didn’t have a child, the vitriol would all be directed at how “barren” she is…

If she left the child at home, the vitriol would all be directed at how she “neglects” her children by putting career first…

If her husband did all the child-rearing, he would be a hero. If she did all the child-rearing, well that’s just expected because it’s what nature intended, everybody knows that — what does she expect? A medal?

Isn’t it great how, as a man, I am free to criticise a woman for every aspect of how she raises her children? Or doesn’t raise them? Or has them? Or brings them to work? Or doesn’t? And then, I can also complain that as a heterosexual white male I’m oppressed and and endangered species."