Babies in the Workplace

Babies in the Workplace  6

Similar situations occurred in nearly every one of these companies when the idea of allowing babies was proposed.  Since they had never before seen a baby come to work, and because they assumed that all babies cry frequently and for long periods of time, most people assumed that a parent trying to work with a baby was destined to fail.    Our culture has excluded babies and children from the work environment for so long that we've forgotten that for most of the human race's existence, and even in some societies today, babies and children are just part of a normal day--and that both children and adults can thrive with this integration. Converted    Once the decision had been made to allow babies at the Kansas Insurance Department, Brian Moline decided to

7  Converted Skeptics

business].  It has been a very, very positive    program for our workplace.    Sally Rynne, the founder of Health Newsletters Direct, said that her company had about 12 employees when they first decided to allow a baby to come to work.  A company-wide meeting was held to discuss this new policy.  One of the newer employees, a younger man who worked for the new mom, was clearly upset.  He said, "What am I supposed to think?  There's my boss with a baby in her arms."  Sally said he seemed to expect her to be equally appalled and say something like, "You're right--oh my, what were we thinking?"  Instead, Sally looked at him and calmly replied, "And soooo, what?"  The employee didn't know how to respond.  He couldn't actually think of a concrete reason why the happy baby shouldn't be there--except that it was something he had never seen before.