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[Jimster]

There is a widespread perception that academe is more "liberal" or "progressive" than industry. This does not seem to be the case when it comes to "family friendly" policies.  

I have worked in industry for the past 25 years, and examples of family friendly policies there include:

• Maternity leave/paternity leave, including leave for adoptions.
  
  
• Reduced expectations for working past 5 p.m. (say).
  
  
• Reduced work week (and pay) for parents, typically four-day weeks.
  
  
• Increased ability to work from home many/most days per week.
  
  
• Job sharing (two people fill one slot and work about half time).
  
  
• Fewer expectations for travel for parents.
  

The downside to this, for parents, is there is a risk of being preceived as on the "mommy track" or "daddy track." This means that their career advancement is slowed by taking advantage of these policies. Or they may have to give up some of these perks to get promoted. For example,  they may need to agree to move from working four days per week to five days per week to accept a promotion.

[Anon]

This is the Anon from the pregnancy discussion (the person everyone seems to be angry at) ... . I actually worked in industry between degrees at a company that had many of the policies you mentioned. It is worth bringing up, however, that when someone does reduce their workload for a child, the work does not magically "go away," but is usually given to others as a means of punishing them for choosing not to reproduce.  (Anyone who doesn't must be a "superficial" person anyway ... .)  

I am in favor of flex time that can be used for a child or whatever other activity the employee wishes, not accomodations tied to someone's desire to produce carbon copies of themselves ... .  With overpopulation as one of the world's primary problems environmentally and economically, you are doing no one any "favor" by choosing to have a child and deserve no more time off for raising one than I do for taking a trip abroad, sailing my boat, or any number of other recreational activities. To be as direct as possible, I am tiring of individuals with children who act as if I am indebted to them for their actions.

[Tippi]

Hey, Anon, only a couple of people don't agree with you -- others are defending you, including me. I have children and am constantly amazed at "breeders" like myself who think those without any desire for them are pitiful, sad, or missing something, and are offended by those who compare a cat or a hobby with their children! It is sort of like religion. You can tell people that whatever curses they believe will befall you don't matter, since you don't believe in it, and they tell you that you have to believe in it because their god says so.

I'm an anthropologist, so maybe that gives me a different perspective. But even as a parent, I get steamed at those who are overpreoccupied with the "state" of being a parent (or insert any other moral/ideological goody here). Of course, be preoccupied with your own kids, and of course we should all pay school taxes so that some uneducated kid is less likely to rob us or carjack us at gunpoint one day ... but please stop acting as if we are somehow ethically or morally or "humanly" driven to have children, when any developmental psychologist/biologist (the ones I know at least) or physical anthropologist can tell you that it is the chemicals soaking your brain, triggered during certain phases of life that give you a compulsion to reproduce. It is all dressed up in very enjoyable, wonderful emotions, of course, and I'm glad to have succumbed to them, but that's what it is.  So if some of us don't get the chemical rush, big ****ing deal!

Have you checked out an organization called Childless by Choice? I had a department secretary once who was a militant member, sick of explaining that she wasn't sterile or infertile, she just didn't want children. It's a good group of child-liking, but not child-wanting, people -- what a concept.

[Dora]

Don't we already have a slowed advancement for those who decide to take a year off the tenure clock? At my institution, if you take a year off the clock, that year doesn't count, giving you an extra year on the tenure clock, and this means an extra year as an assistant professor -- also this may mean no raise for that year (or no merit pay increase).

I didn't select this option, but I did get a reduced teaching load for the semester I gave birth -- no one taught the course for me, it was simply cancelled. The chair has the option of assigning teaching-load credits from other sources, and that's what we did -- I'd done my share of extra theses, and other kinds of independent studies in the past, so for the semester I gave birth I was assigned the "extra TLCs."  Other people have gotten these in turn -- for informal sabbaticals, to rewrite grants, for that final push to write, etc., etc. I got mine so I could write -- and, in fact, I wrote a grant that semester that was funded. The grant has helped the department to hire adjunts to teach my courses (which I now buy out of) and the difference in my salary is used for other department needs (e.g., teaching assistants).

So, my point is we can be flexible in what we do in a given semester, yet one should look at the "big picture." When I went up for tenure, no one remarked on one semester in which I had a reduced workload; they did remark on my publication record (which was excellent) and my having secured about $3-million in research grants as an assistant professor.