The mommy wars are back in the media again with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer apparently banning staff from working from home because lack of face time can restrict the spontaneous sharing of ideas that generates the next big thing. And Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg has extolled young women to stop worrying about work-life balance before they even need to — the beginning of their work lives should not be limited by possible future deviations.
It seems to be an old, old story, but it ain’t going away — and that’s because of childcare.
PBS recently aired a doc on feminism, and in one segment Maria Shriver said that it’s not possible to have it all. Her twenties and now her fifties have been dedicated to work, but her thirties and forties were about raising her kids.
Balancing work and family is plain difficult because workplace cultures are not family-friendly, and parents have varying amounts of social capital available to help fill all the gaps of sick days, no-school days, and summer vacation days.
All I know is that working from home would be a no-brainer for a lot of us.