...but do you think it's possible that some people who work in offices where people are generally expected to work ridiculously long hours have babies just because it seems like the people who have babies get to go home at a reasonable time?
Because if you think that might work for you, let me tell you, it is almost certainly not worth it. There are other ways.
7 comments:
Oh, my friend. This posting is spot on in every way you might slice it.
However did you get so smart?
I'd say that anyone having a baby to get out of work is in for a nasty shock. Babies are more work than work. If anything, having babies gives people reason to work longer hours to avoid the harder work of child-rearing.
"Gosh, dear, I'd LOVE to be the one on night duty taking care of Junior whose cough wakes him up every half hour, but I have to get up and go to WORK."
Oh yes, I held onto this theory tightly and bitterly for most of my twenties -- which not coincidentally happened to be the time when I worked too much and none of my close friends had kids.
It wasn't the only reason I imagined potential baby-havers putting on the pro side of the list (I also imagined people making these pro/con procreate lists). But it was there. I was pretty certain that they'd at least run this "Who's gonna stay late and edit/write/proof this?" scenario through their heads and come up with: Sick baby trumps popular spin class any day. It's not as if the diarrhea-suffering thing can change itself, right?
And then my friends starting have kids and never once did I question their claims that work was easier. They looked forward to coming to a less smelly and sticky place where people (mostly) can feed themselves and where "soft in head" is a figurative not literal term and where the threat of dropping said soft head off the bed wasn't real. So I let go of that theory and starting picking up those babies whenever they'd visit the office -- unless of course I was too busy doing extra work that piles up when not everyone can stay late.
But that's a management-caused problem, not a parental-generated one.
OK, gotta go, it's not as if the dog can take himself out to poop.
Agreed, absolutely, with cousin mouse and alongstory. I should be quite clear that people who think that has another think coming.
It just seems like people who haven't been around babies a lot, perhaps because they claim not to like them, might think the baby-having would work.
Understood, but you've left us hanging. What are the other ways?
Having a sick relative is a good one. Does this involve poison? Or is Bunburying an option?
Bunburying is always an option. (Link included for people who grew up perhaps less exposed to British theater -- er, theatre -- than my cousin and I were.)
But I was thinking more in terms of finding a more reasonable job. Or, if you're valuable enough, telling your bosses that your hours are unreasonable and that you aren't so invested in being a team player that you're willing to sacrifice having a life, or invent fake ill friends.
Anyone else have ideas?
Hey, sounds like a Business Smarts.
Maybe it work for me. Because I'm going to have a baby.
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