The Reality of Maternity and Paternity in the Software Industry

Dysfunctosoft, you are indeed extremely dysfunctional, but the Cranky Product Manager truly appreciates the flexibility you have afforded her as she attempts to figure out the motherhood-working mom-consummate-professional balance thingy. 

You've been understanding about the CPM's requirement for a reduced travel schedule, her need to leave at 5pm on the dot when she once regularly stayed past 9pm, and her need to work at home when her nanny gets sick, doesn't show up, or quits out of the blue and leaves the CPM without viable alternative childcare for 3 weeks at a time. You've put up with canceled and postponed meetings due to illnesses and doctors visits. You've gracefully dealt with conference calls with a wailing baby in the background. Kudos to you, DysfunctoSoft.  The Cranky Product Manager thanks you.

So yes, DysfunctoSoft, you are enlightened. Somewhat. But she can't help but notice you don't give the DADS the same flexibility as you afford moms.  You expect the dads to travel incessantly, work endlessly late hours, and be available on a moment's notice.  And DysfunctoSoft is hardly atypical.  For example, the Darling Husband of the Cranky Product Manager works at nearby software company  -- let's call it AHoleSoft -- in a similar role.  AHoleSoft gives Darling Husband no slack to contribute to the childcare situation.  (AHoles. What do you expect?)  As a result, it all falls 100% on the Cranky Product Manager's shoulders.  And that is crap, my friends.  Unexpected crap, at that.  Especially for someone ambitious who had dreams of taking over the world with her wealth of product management knowledge and derivative evil genius.  Though she never thought it would happen to her, the Cranky Product Manager finds her career derailing, unable to accept a promotion because she can barely keep up as is.

Prior to this whole kid thing, the Cranky Product Manager had full (naive) expectations of a 50-50 marital split in terms of child-raisin'.  After all, she brought down slightly more coin than DH, has a megawatt education, and had a pretty freakin' important job and excellent career prospects. Furthermore, Darling Husband fully supported this 50-50 split idea. He was all in favor of it.  He's a natural with kids and wanted to spend lots of time with his offspring. 

But alas, you Software Industry Mo-Fos make it pretty freakin' impossible.  Oh yes, you try to be nice to moms, and your efforts are appreciated.  But just remember, you can't really help working moms unless you help their husbands/partners too.

Comments

[Kimmelin Hull]

Dear CPM,

Isn't it interesting how the world becomes a very different place once children come onto our scene?

You bring up an excellent point...one I am heavily extrapolating on here...but an interesting point, nonetheless. We come to think of our employers, or perhaps society around us in general, in very different terms once WE become parents. We suddenly recognize the inequities that existed all along, but hadn't pertained to us up unti that point.

Even if you had been totally and completely smitten with Dysfunctosoft and Aholesoft before said child arrived, surely your opinion STILL would have changed to what it is now!

There is an organization called MomsRising (http://www.momsrising.org/) that I think you might find very interesting. Check it out.

I've begun to focus my speaking engagements largely around the still insignificant degree of support families with young children receive from our self-centered, egotistical, disconnected American culture. It's not that ours isn't a tremendously GREAT society to raise children in--after all, we have better careers, access to more financial freedom and resources and...Disneyland...than 90+% of the rest of the world. But there are some major deficits--like the lack of standard paternity leave thing you mentioned in this post.

Kudos to you for your frank, courageous, honest writing! Keep up the good work!

[LindaM]

CrankyPM, stay cranky about this. Absolutely agree with Stacy's post: who's minding the kids while we're doin' the wage-slave thing? Can you contribute strategically to your company while parenting? Absolutely, but it does take good backup on the home front, and "Dad" is the ideal coandidate for that.

Of course, there is the personal responsibility side to consider. If AHoleSoft isn't able to deal with it - I'll bet there are other companies who can, who 'get it', and would value HIS values.

[Stacey Weber]

Well said, CPM! This topic seems to be leftover from the early 60s -- instead of gaining equal footing, many women are now holding down careers AND managing the bulk of the parenting & household responsibilities. And when we stand up for ourselves and our children, folks make comments about our level of commitment (well, do you really want this job or not?). All of this sucks if you're a mom. And, there's a bigger issue here that no one's touched on.

What about the kids? They NEED their fathers in their lives. As a society, we need to recognize that the 50/50 parenting split isn't just about convenience or professional success. This is the future of the world we're talking about! Kids need as many caring adults around as possible -- it truly does take a village. If you're trying to be a full-time mom AND a full-time kick-butt Product Manager, your patience levels will be stretched thin. That's when Dad needs to step in and do his part. Later when he's tired and feeling cranky himself, he flags Mom back into the ring.

Parenting at its best is a team sport - regardless of our career choice, position, and organization!

I am incredibly lucky to work for a company that values my need to balance work and life...wouldn't it be great if ALL companies understood that when our lives are better, we're better professionals?

[DGentry]

I was very fortunate to be able to take a six week paternity leave when our daughter was born, and it was a wonderful (though exhausting) experience.

I'd saved up vacation before the due date. California allows new parents to file with the State Disability Insurance fund for Paid Family Leave, which pays 55% of the worker's income. My employer allowed fractional days of PTO to replace the other 45%, effectively doubling the time I could take.

As a developer I travel infrequently, and we arranged my product deliverables to leave a lull at around the due date. Had I been in a role which required me to visit customers or trade shows at fixed dates, the pressures might have been rather different.

[Don MacLennan]

(Please take this in the spirit of healthy discourse, given how highly charged the issue is...)

A vexing set of issues to be sure. And I've had star product managers as working moms that have experienced exactly what you have. Including one whom I'd desperately want to work for me again, but who can't. Or won't. Which leads me to the point...

If it's even possible to set aside the real gender biases you're pointing out for a moment, I see one issue as being the nature of the job and the lifestyle implications. We expect CEO's, for example, to put work first. And they are paid handsomely for it.

As we move downward in a corporate hierarchy, that expectation of "work first" diminishes to some degree. The trap for many product managers is that they are individual contributors or small team leaders, but their importance to the corporation is disproportionate to their level in the hierarchy. This is good in the sense that one wants to be important, even strategically so. The bad is that we look to peer functions and form our expectations accordingly. And we surely aren't compensated as executives who thereby have the means to hire awesome daycare, afford a spouse at home, and any other measures to ensure work/life balance.

So the question might be very personal: do we want play a role that is strategic to the corporation? Are we willing to pay the price for such a role?

[S@L]

Amen.

My DH works for a software company, too.

In December he was in Korea fixing bugs at a client site (because of his company's crappy project planning) for 2 of the longest, single-parent/working-mother weeks of my life. Then his company asked him to stay for another week *over the Christmas holiday*. He said no, because he needed to be home with his family (duh). But his company actually pressed him on it (in 2008!) So he explained that he needed to be home because it's difficult for a working mother to also be the sole parent, etc., and that he'd already been away long enough. The president of the company said to him, and I quote: "MY wife would understand".

To which he replied (and I will always love him for this), "Yes, but you see, I am married to MY wife."