Bring Kids to Work (every day)

In the past months many of us have transitioned our work to our homes. You may say, we brought the work home. And as we learn how to balance the delicate boundaries between work assignments and deadlines, personal well-being and care for our loved ones, parents are finding themselves surrounded with their children while attending conference calls. From the "Bring Your Kids to Work" day, today we got to keep our kids at work every day. In that complex tango between us and our kids we are being observed steadily throughout our work days and weeks. Among many funny, difficult and disrupted work moments that I have experienced at home office, one left a particularly strong impression on me. I was attending one of the dozen of conference calls that packed my Tuesday calendar, when my youngest child entered my office and sat under the table, peacefully coloring. I did not notice this quiet intrusion and continued with the call. After a long hour, I finished the Zoom call and started to prepare for the next one when I got startled by a quiet but confident voice of a 7-year old: "You have very nice friends, mama." As surprised I was by this comment, I was also relieved that my son had approved of the interaction between my colleagues in that call. Yes, I am proud of a wonderful, diverse and inclusive workplace that I am so privileged to work in, but this event made me wonder how would our children rate our workplace experiences and if they would not rate them very high, what does that tell us?