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What would you do?

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What would you do?

A coworker on your team went on paternity leave, with his first child, and gets nothing from your team.

Next, another coworker is about to go on maternity leave, with her first child, and your team circulates a card.

You felt uncomfortable when you saw the card because it felt unfair. That compounded when your sole male coworker expressed that it hurt his feelings to have been excluded and then asked to sign for someone else.

Do you:

A) Sign the card anyway to look like a team player. Or,

B) Ignore the card because the whole situation makes you uncomfortable. Or,

C) <insert what you would have done here>

I chose B and was called out for not signing. But, for better or worse (it's probably worse), I stood my ground and said I opted out because it made me uncomfortable.

But, should I unfortunately find myself in a similarly uncomfortable situation again, I'm interested to see how others would handle it. So maybe I can be more graceful next time.

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26 Comments

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  1. Anonymous

    Don't penalize the recipient because someone didn't think. Sign the card and then, if you feel comfortable in doing so, speak with whoever organized this and say something along the lines of "hey, I'm sure this was not intentional, but I feel like we left out (insert male co-worker's name here) and now that (female co-worker) is going out on leave, we are choosing to celebrate her" maybe not the best wording, but I think you get what I mean.

  2. Rt Wl

    I would have signed but also circulated a card for the dad.

  3. Lia Blokhuis

    I would have gone with "C": I would have pointed out the inequity and asked for an explanation, but that all depends on how concerned you are with fitting into the team environment. I don't think you did anything wrong. It sounds like you were in a no-win situation unless you maintained their status quo. The fact that your manager allowed this is concerning, and I'm sorry that you were put into this situation. I feel that it's better to speak up when things don't seem fair, but that almost always comes with a price. Maybe see if HR has a policy, and if not, suggest that they consider putting one in writing. That would eliminate uncomfortable events like this in the future.

  4. Kathy

    Is there an 'official' person who decides when a card is required, purchases the card and then starts the circulation process? Or is the whole process ad-hoc where someone on the team decides for themselves and starts the process rolling?

    Perhaps a team meeting is in order to discuss the issue and create a process that is fair to everyone. Either no cards ever or everyone gets a card if they are celebrating similar occasions, births, etc.

  5. Anonymous

    There's no official process. It's mostly based on the whim of the person who circulated the card.

  6. misskelleyp

    The time to say something was when nothing was done for the male coworker. It's not fair to penalize someone else for the teams lack of doing something for another employee. Ideally, if your team is going to celebrate an employee's baby, they should do so for EVERY employee.

  7. Anonymous

    I don't disagree. Had I known this would become a thing, I would have spoken up then.

  8. Maria Porpora

    Maybe we should rethink that. It's not valid to assume that this is the correct way to do things just because it's the way things have always been done. If that was the case, women wouldn't even be able to work in most fields.

  9. Anonymous

    I agree with Maria. That's not a very inclusive way of thinking and feels a tad outdated.

  10. Caitlin

    In most of the offices that I've worked at, the leadership is clueless about birthdays and baby-leave and bereavement, and unless they have an admin who keeps up on that, it fell to whoever was friends with that person to recognize things and get cards circulated. I once knew a non-official work mom who kept an index card in her desk with important dates and self-appointed herself to take care of this kind of thing, and she was MORTIFIED if she forgot something or found out after the fact.

    I don't think this is the hill to die on. I think recognizing the inequity and verbalizing that gently is appropriate, and maybe get a card circulated for the father (either on your own or encouraging the team lead to do that). You could do this by saying "Oh my gosh... do you realize we forgot to do this for Jim when his baby was born?" Chances are, others will gasp with embarrassment and it will get rectified quickly.

  11. Julie E

    I would sign the card and ended the drama by finding a paternity card and had everybody sign it for him. I’m sure Hallmark makes them. Tell everyone, new tradition, dads get a card too.

  12. Lori Laurito Betz

    You can’t see that it’s not about “women push out babies” and it is about celebrating a new baby/new parenthood?

    Yes, even though it’s 2024 and women STILL get a lousy deal in so many ways (like so many marginalized groups)…if we REALLY want this country to move forward we need to respect maternity AND paternity, like those countries that offer paid leaves for BOTH

  13. Lori Laurito Betz

    I would have signed hers and pointed out that we missed his and offered to get one for him.

    These comments though-I’m as much a social justice warrior for marginalized groups as anyone. BUT-is the point of getting a coworker a card “congrats on the new baby”? Or is it “congrats on going through pregnancy, labor, and pushing out a baby”? Because I feel like the point of a card is the first but several commenters have taken it as the second.

    I would think we’d want to honor and respect the milestone of becoming a parent regardless of which gender the employee is…because this country is WAY behind in that regard, in offering maternity-paternity leave, etc-especially when there’s so many people insisting we are a godly country of family values… How do we put the balance into work/life balance like other countries have done when we don’t see acknowledging both parents as relevant?

  14. Megan Westrum

    I would have signed the card for her.

    Then went to the store to buy similar/appropriate card and circled around a card for him, as well. :)

  15. Anonymous

    Good for you for standing up for what you felt was right but....in future.

    C) <insert what you would have done here>

    I would have not refused to sign it but definitely would have called out in a professional way in writing to the team that a man having a child is also something to celebrate and while he is not the one giving birth you hope that in the future that the company will universally regard both events the same. Remind the company that not acknowledging men in a "women" centric team is discrimination.

  16. Anonymous

    Way to be unsupportive of the OP who is clearly trying to do the right thing. Think before you post...

  17. Anonymous

    Can you expand upon "bigger issues here"?

  18. Anonymous

    I’d take 3 steps:

    1)Sign the card for the female co-worker.

    2)Send a note to the male co-worker congratulating him on his new baby, and telling him that you wish he’d been remembered when his child was born.

    3)Make a suggestion to your manager and, if relevant to your company, HR, that all new parents be acknowledged.

  19. Maggie Stone

    Perfect solution.

  20. Anonymous

    I buy my own gifts for things like weddings and babies and simply opt out of the group things.
    If I’m asked to sign something, I thank the leader for the offer to sign and explain I’ve already given my own present.

  21. Colleen Hanson

    Yes! This is what I have always done as well. I, at times, have faced ridicule from other employees for doing things this way; especially when it came to a co-worker that others did not feel was worthy of a card/gift. It's been my experience that these things are usually started by a self-proclaimed group of clique-like "well-doers" and not done company wide so the higher ups had no idea that people were being excluded.

    The most infuriating for me was working for a company where a group of these "well-doers" had shirts and personalized bracelets made in support of a female employee who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. This came 1 month after another female employee had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was getting ready to start treatment. Not one thing was done for her, nor was she recognized in any way. She was a very kind, hard worker and one of those who did not play into the company cliques, she kept her head down and did her work. I was so upset by the lack of acknowledgement and the over-the-top support for the other that I went straight to the top and told them how very wrong this was. They had absolutely NO idea! In return, they had me set up a company luncheon, and presented her with a beautiful gift basket of pampering items to make her recovery a little less stressful. The "well-doers" claimed that this was not "fair" to their "friend" but the higher ups pointed out that what they had done was not in good taste and let this group know that any future support, celebrations, etc. would be handled by the company and they were forbidden to continue doing things like this going forward unless they did it outside of the office.

    Needless to say, I became a mortal enemy of the self-proclaimed "well-doers", which was fine with me as they acted like a group of junior high school girls deciding who was "popular" and who was not.

  22. Anonymous

    Ooh, this is an interesting one. I've never worked in a place where this has happened - in my experience any cards and gifts were couched in terms of the couple regardless of the gender of the actual employee, or given after the birth as a gift for the baby. Given this, I don't think this is present for HER as some people have responded.

    Hind sight is 20/20. It sounds like no alarm bells rang for you until your female colleague got a card that your male colleague didn't. I would have been the same. I would have signed the card - depriving her my your good wishes doesn't rectify anything - but raised the issue with whoever in my team organises these niceties. At that point, they could have discretely realised the error and made amends by purchasing a small gift for the baby.

    In fact, I would still think about raising this. Aside from first time dads, there will be adoptive mums or dads in heterosexual relationships, non-pregnant mums in same sex partnerships, adoptive dads in same sex partnerships, single mums undergoing IVF, single dads using a surrogate. In short, many ways a child can bless a family that as colleagues it's nice to say, 'Congrats!'

  23. Anonymous

    c) I would sign this card, and then I would start a collection amongst my coworkers for a diaper collection or doordash card or something else to recognize the male coworker who didn't receive equitable treatment when becoming a new parent.

  24. Jos Waller

    My thoughts exactly, if you see an inequity then step up and do something. My old workplace was notorious for stuff like this. A lot of people would complain and then do nothing to change things. A card is such a small thing, but could mean so much to someone.

  25. Anonymous

    Agree to the suggestions to sign the card, note to other colleague and consider informing team lead about future events and how to improve. I'd add.. in situations where there may be a lot of cards or requests for gifts, it may be worth a department or company-wide conversation about how best to go about this: 1. scale up for monthly team announcements and celebrations- rather than individualized ones- this can allow co-workers the option to participate in personalized cards, well wishes, and gifts. I once worked for a company where the personalized approach was really sweet. Then, our staff tripled and it was too much time for all the card signing and gifts (and then some people were inadvertently forgotten because it wasn't tracked). We chose to scale up and it made things easier for bigger teams. It also allowed folks to opt in for celebrations. Some folks want to keep things private. Good luck.

  26. Wendy Curtis

    I keep a bunch of cards in my desk. If someone doesn't circulate a card for a coworker, do it yourself.

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